No 4 (2024)

One of the most prominent problems of modern geochemistry and climatology is the understanding of the patterns of migration of the main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄). The purpose of this work is a brief review of the widely accepted concept of the dominant role of the anthropogenic factor in climate change, which is considered in the paleo-context of changes in natural climate cycling over the past hundreds of thousands of years, and in present time. It is shown that to understand the functioning of the climate system, it is necessary to take into account the geological factor – changes in the state of terrestrial and subsea permafrost: the huge reservoirs of ancient carbon, which is included in biogeochemical cycles due to permafrost degradation in warm geological epochs. This leads to imbalance in the carbon cycling, which manifests itself in massive emissions of CO₂ and CH₄ into the atmosphere. During cold geological epochs, carbon accumulates in permafrost, which stores amounts of carbon exceeding the carbon exchange between atmosphere, biosphere, land and ocean. Considering the Arctic region as the key climate “kitchen” we state that present time is characterized by unique long-lasting warming after the Holocene optimum, which occurred in the northern hemisphere approximately 5–6 thousand years ago. It contradicts with the Milankovich’ 105-kyrs cycling: after the Holocene optimum, the geological ice-epoch should have occurred, which should have led to about 100-meters sea level lowering and the transformation of the shallow Arctic shelf into land. However, warming has continued and the level of the World Ocean continues to rise, which has already led to an extended high sea level on the Arctic shelf – unique in geological history. This caused the lasting contact of relatively warm bottom waters (~(–1) °C) and frozen sediments (~(–25) °C) of the Arctic shelf for 5–6 thousand years longer than in previous warm geological epochs, which led to the progressive degradation of subsea permafrost, formation of deep or through taliks (zones of melted permafrost) and destabilization of Arctic shallow hydrates. It is shown that the increasing runoff of Siberian rivers, mobilization, transport, and transformation of terrestrial organic matter in the Arctic land–shelf system determines the sedimentation and biogeochemistry of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf – the broadest and shallowest shelf in the World Ocean, which makes up more than 70% of the Northern Sea Route area. This review paper presents selected key results obtained by the authors and their colleagues over the past 30 years, and identifies a number of problems facing modern climatology.

Creating high-yielding varieties of wheat, barley, and buckwheat with resistance to lodging and high technological and biochemical parameters of grain is one of the most important challenges for breeding. The paper evaluates some varieties of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) from a competitive variety trial under the conditions of the monsoon climate of Primorsky kray. The research was conducted at FSBSI “FSC of Agrobiotechnology of the Far East named after A. K. Chaika” in 2021–2023. Eleven soft spring wheat varieties, eleven spring barley varieties, and ten buckwheat varieties were used as the research object. The following varieties were selected based on the results of the complex study on economically important traits (plant height, ear length, the number of grains per ear, yield, and resistance to lodging), biochemical (protein, gluten, starch, oil, and cereal yield) and technological parameters (grain hardness, bulk density, and TKW):wheat – Primorskaya 219, Primorskaya 269, and Primorskaya 274; spring barley – Primorskii 100 and Primorskii 153; buckwheat – Primorskaya 442 andPrimorskaya 437. Many years of breeding work resulted in the creation of new highly productive varieties of soft spring wheat Primorskaya 274 (Okeanskaya) and spring barley Primorskii 153 (Ussuriets), which were submitted to the State variety testing in 2023.

Improving the productivity of micro-plants under greenhouse conditions plays a key role in increasing the output of virus-free starting material for the production of breeder seed potatoes. The research goal was to evaluate how different methods for growing test-tube plants (in garden beds and pots) affected the survival rate, growing period length, and productivity of five potato varieties – Meteor, Adretta, Dachnyi, Kazachok, and Smak. The research discovered that growing the micro-plants in 5 L containers was more advantageous than planting them in garden beds. The survival rate of the plants was by 4.5–18.5% in the variants with the pots. The growing period length decreased by 2–4 days. The net reproduction rate increased by 2.3 times on average over the two year of our experiment. Variety Meteor had the highest average productivity among the specimens grown in the pots (8.9 tubers/plant).

The research was carried out in 2008–2022 in the Laboratory of Breeding and Primary Seed Production of the All-Russian Soybean Research Institute in order to create and subsequently introduce into production a new productive soybean variety with high adaptive potential. As a result of long-term work, a medium-ripened soybean variety VNIIS-18 was created, with a vegetation period of 111 days (108–112), a potential yield of 42.1 hwt/ha, a weight of 1000 seeds of 139.9 g (132.8–144.9), the content of protein in the seeds is 40.2% (40.0–40.4%), fat – 19.7% (19.1–20.3%). The new soybean variety meets the main modern requirements of agricultural production, exceeds the standard in yield by 4.1 hwt/ha, and in protein content in seeds (by 2%), provides a high collection of crude protein per unit area (10.3 hwt/ha, + 1.9 hwt/ha to st), characterized by a large number of 4-seed beans (up to 65% per plant). In the period 2021–2022 variety VNIIS-18 was propagated in nurseries of primary seed production, as a result, 108.6 q of original seeds were obtained, for introduction into production. It is resistant to diseases and pests and belongs to the plastic varieties of the intensive type. Its cultivation will increase the profitability of culture in the Far Eastern Region.

Our research revealed a stable one-way modification variation (weak) in “the content of sugars” in all variants of population F₈, F₉ (С_V = 1.9–7.7%; 4.8–10.0%, uniformity – 98.1–92.3%; 95.2–90.0%, respectively). The content of carotene in F₈ and F₉ was most variable for the studied variants (C_V = 20.0–60.0%; 14.7–30.0%, uniformity – 40.0–80.0; 70.0–85.3%, respectively). A moderate and significant variation in the content of vitamin C was characteristic of F₈ (C_V = 12.9–30.0, uniformity – 70.0–87.1%), a weak and moderate variation was observed in F₉ (C_V = 6.2–20.0%, uniformity – 80.0–93.8%). Variants F₈, F₉ had an ascorbic acid content of 14.2–21.7; 19.5–24.4 mg% accordingly, which exceeds the technological requirements imposed on varieties of edible squash for processing. Based on the evaluation of variation in the chemical parameters of fruit quality, by recurrent individual selection using the methods of halves, for the conservation of positive changes in variety population 945 and variants of necessary type, we selected seeds from the spare halves of variants F₉ 945-13, 945-27, 945-11, 945-12, 945-22, and 945-31 for further testing for economically important traits.

The article identifies the main reasons for the insufficient supply of feed for highly productive livestock farming in the island region (Sakhalin Island). Ways have been proposed to transition to a new level of development of adaptive feed production based on existing scientific developments at Sakhalin Research Institute of Agriculture – branch of the Federal Research Center All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources named after. N. I. Vavilov (SakhNIISKh – a branch of VIR), the results of agroecological testing of various types and varieties of annual forage crops with different ripening periods, improved technological methods for cultivating the most promising phytocenoses in their pure form and grass mixtures in the main, intermediate and mowing crops. For the first time in a monsoon climate, a technological scheme for the uninterrupted supply of feed mass from annual phytocenoses has been developed to organize a green (raw material) conveyor during the summer-autumn period for the sustainable production of high-quality bulk feed. The complex of forage crops proposed for cultivation is characterized not only by a variety of uses and high productivity (20–60 t/ha of green mass, 4–12 t/ha of dry matter), but also by the ability to extend the period of operation of the green (raw material) conveyor to an average of 120–125 days. Improving the structure of the mowing areas of forage crops guarantees the production of high-quality feed with a nutritional value of 1 kg of dry matter not lower than 9–10 MJ of metabolizable energy and a crude protein content of 13–14%.

In 2021–2022, the incidence and prevalence of bovine leukemia was monitored in the southeastern regions of the Far Eastern Federal District. In the region, in 2021, bovine leukemia was detected in the Amur and Magadan regions, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Republics of Buryatia and Sakha (Yakutia), and in 2022 the Trans-Baikal Territory was added to the listed regions. The disease was not registered in the Magadan region in 2022. The incidence of leukemia in cattle (per 1 thousand heads) in 2022 decreased by 25.0% (compared to 2021). The rate of decrease in bovine leukemia in 2021 was 3.7%, in 2022 1.9%. In the Jewish Autonomous Region in 2022, 40 unfavorable points for bovine leukemia were registered. By the end of the reporting period, five unfavorable points had been rehabilitated, the intensity of the epizootic process of bovine leukemia decreased by 4.5%. In the Sakhalin region, bovine leukemia was not diagnosed in 2021–2022.