From an analysis of 481 Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viceae strains with 7 pea cultivars in pot and field experiments, we demonstrated that effective strains could be isolated from a rich medium-acid grey forest soil of the Or61 area (Central region of the European part of Russia) but not from a poor acid podzolic soil of the St. Petersburg area (North-West Russia). The proportion of the isolates significantly increasing N accumulation in pea plants (10.2%) is higher than that of strains increasing the shoot dry mass (4.6%) in the pot experiments. The mean values of the increase for N accumulation (33.8%) upon inoculation are also higher than for shoot mass (27.0%) in these experiments. N accumulation in the inoculated pea plants in the pot experiments was significantly correlated with seed yield and seed N accumulation in field experiments, while for shoot dry mass these correlations were either weak or not significant. Two-factor analysis of variance demonstrated that the contribution of plant cultivars to the variation of the major symbiotic efficiency parameters is higher (30.8-31.6%) and contributions of cultivar-strain specificity is lower (5.4-8.8%) than the contributions of strain genotypes (13.4-14.9%). We identified an ineffective R. leguminosarum bv. viceae strain 50 which can be used as a tester for assessing the nodulation competitiveness of the effective strains by an indirect method (analysis of dry mass and N accumulation in pea plants inoculated with the mixture of the tested effective strains and the tester strain). The relative competitive ability (RCA) determined by this method was 75.7-82.8% for strain 52 but only 10.5-13.8% for strain 250a; this difference was confirmed by a direct method (use of the streptomycin-resistant mutants). Results of screening of the diverse collection of 53 effective R. leguminosarum bv. viceae strains by the indirect method permits us to divide them into 3 groups (32 high-competitive, 10 medium-competitive and 11 low-competitive strains) but reveals no correlation between the competitiveness and symbiotic efficiency. N accumulation in the pea shoots is demonstrated to be a much more suitable criterion than the shoot mass for selection either of the highly-effective or of highly-competitive (by the indirect estimation) R. leguminosarum by. viceae strains in the pot experiments.

Single-chain miniantibodies (scFv's) to actin were obtained by the phage display method. A naive combinatorial phage display library of murine scFv's (containing 2x10(8) independent recombinant clones) was used to select miniantibodies. After three rounds of selection two clones producing miniantibodies to chicken smooth muscle actin with affinity constants of 1.4x10(7) and 1.2x10(6) M(-1) were chosen. The isolated miniantibodies could specifically detect various plant and animal actins.

Disorientation of the plum moth (Grapholita funebrana Treitschke) under the conditions of chemical protection of the garden was carried out using dispensers (Z8DDA, 16.7 mg) produced by ZAO Shchelkovo Agrokhim. Dispensers were placed at a tree trunk at a height of 1.5 - 2 m with an application rate of 500 per hectare. The study was carried out on three plots of a 1 ha plum orchard: a plot with chemical treatments and with disorientation, an area with chemical treatments, without disorientation, and an area without chemical treatments and without disorientation. The effectiveness of disorientation at a high abundance during the flight peaks of the second and third generations of the pest ranged from 100 % to 92-93 %. The effectiveness of disorientation, together with the chemical protection of the garden in comparison with untreated area, showed higher results - in the first two months, the efficiency ranged from 100 to 98 %, and during the periods of the 2nd and 3rd flight peaks of the pest (with a flight intensity of 136 - 120 individuals per trap) did not fall below 96 %.

The complexes of click beetles in the perennial plantations of the Western Caucasus are formed at the expense of species from the surrounding (adjacent) biotopes. In the forest zone, the complexes are formed by their similarity to meadow biotopes (biocenoses) with inclusions of dominant species from meadow biotopes of the foothill lane. Agriotes tauricus Heyd., and Drasterius bimaculatus (Rossi) are common species in all lanes and zones of the studied region. Species Agriotes gurgistanus (Fald.), Melanotus fusciceps (Gyll.), Athous Circassiensis Reitt., Agriotes sputator (L.) are most often dominant of elateridocoplex.