N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources
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| N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources | |
|---|---|
| |
| Type | Federal research centre and gene bank |
| Website | vir.nw.ru |
| Founded | 1894 |
| Base | Saint Petersburg, Russia |
| Scope | Crop plants and their wild relatives worldwide |
| Focus | Collection, conservation and study of plant genetic resources |
| Other sites | English site |
The N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) is a plant research institute and gene bank in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It grew out of the Bureau of Applied Botany, set up in 1894, and carries the name of Nikolai Vavilov, who headed it from 1920.[1]: 1, 8 Its full name is the Federal Research Center N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources.[2] Its hemp collection held 491 accessions of Cannabis sativa on 6 November 2026.[3]
Names
The Bureau of Applied Botany was organised in 1894 under the Scientific Committee of the Russian Ministry of Land Cultivation and State Property.[1]: 1 After the death of R. E. Regel, Vavilov was elected head of the bureau in 1920, and he moved to Petrograd in March 1921.[1]: 8, 18 The bureau's successor became the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops in 1924 and the All-Union Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) in 1930.[1]: 26, 40[2] The institute was named after Vavilov on 27 March 1967.[1]: 119 It took its present name under an order of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organisations of 31 December 2014.[2]
During the siege of Leningrad, the largest part of the collection stayed in the city. The institute lost more than 30 of its researchers in the first autumn of the siege, and the staff who remained prepared the seed for long-term keeping in the city.[1]: 114
Where the collection is kept
In 1994 the institute's collections numbered 334,000 accessions of 2,102 species.[1]: 138 The work on them is shared between the departments and laboratories in Saint Petersburg, a seed bank in the Krasnodar Territory and 11 experimental stations in the main climatic zones of Russia, with low-temperature and cryogenic stores.[4]
The seed bank was built in 1976 as the State Seed Store, in the grounds of the Kuban Experiment Station, 170 km from Krasnodar. In 1999 all its chambers were kept at +4 °C.[1]: 120 As the Kuban Genetic Seed Bank it holds more than 260,000 accessions of 250 crops in long-term, duplicate and active collections. The Kuban station itself was founded on Vavilov's initiative on 4 October 1924.[4]
Hemp in the collection
Hemp belongs to the department of oil and fibre crops.[5][1]: 121 In 1993 the collection held 397 accessions, divided into northern, central and southern eco-geographical groups.[6] By 1998 it held 496.[7]
On 6 November 2026 the institute's database listed 491 accessions. For the 420 with an acquisition date, the earliest is 1926, a sample from Turkey, and the latest 1980. More than half, 252, were acquired in the 1950s.[3] In October 2026 the accessions came chiefly from Ukraine (99), Russia (74), the former East Germany (72), China (42), the former Yugoslavia (35) and the European part of the former Soviet Union (35), with 11 from Kazakhstan and two from Afghanistan. All were in short-term storage.[3] In 1998 seed of 214 accessions was also kept at room temperature in the seed store at Kuban.[7] In a study published in 2018, accessions of the central Russian and northern types were grown at the institute's Pushkin and Pavlovsk laboratories.[8]
Regrowing the hemp, 1993 to 1998
In 1993 the institute began a four-year programme to keep and assess its hemp accessions, with a grant from the International Hemp Association. It set a minimum of 1,000 plants in each population and 200 g of seed for storage.[6] Of the 172 accessions sown in 1993 and 1994, only 11 reached both.[9] Each year some samples failed to set seed through poor ripening and theft.[10] In 1997 the plantings were at the Pavlovsk, Ekaterinino and Kuban experiment stations and the Penza Institute of Agriculture.[11]
By the end of the programme 379 of the 496 accessions had been regrown. In the report of Robert Clarke, very few had been lost, but several had very few seeds left and "now must be multiplied from a possibly more limited genetic base".[7] Matthew Welling and colleagues wrote in 2016 that lack of funding was thought to have compromised regrowing at the institute and to have led to a loss of unique diversity.[12] How long the stored seed keeps is treated under ex situ conservation.
Terms of supply
Requests for samples are taken from 1 January to 1 March for spring crops and from 1 April to 1 June for winter crops. They follow an order of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of 20 March 2026 on supplying material from biological collections to third parties, which sets a standard form of contract. A request comes from an organisation, with a covering letter on its letterhead signed by its head.[13] In 2026 the institute supplied 3,878 accessions free of charge in answer to 166 requests from Russian state research institutes and universities.[14]
Accessions
Herbarium specimens held by the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources.
| Collector | Collected | Country | Catalogue number | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vavilov s.n., Chekhosarai (1924) | Nikolai Vavilov | Afghanistan | WIR 599, 3952 | |
| Vavilov s.n., Gui-Akhen (1924) | Nikolai Vavilov | Afghanistan | WIR 609, 3945 |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Loskutov, Igor G. (1999). Vavilov and his Institute: a history of the world collection of plant genetic resources in Russia. Rome: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. ISBN 92-9043-412-0.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Об институте" [About the institute]. VIR (in русский). N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, Plant genetic resources database. VIR, genus Cannabis; list read 6 November 2026, accession pages 4 October 2026
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "УНУ Коллекция ВИР" [The VIR collection]. VIR (in русский). N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ↑ "Научные подразделения" [Research departments]. VIR (in русский). N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lemeshev, N.; Rumyantseva, L.; Clarke, R.C. (1994). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1993". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 1 (1): 3–5.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Clarke, R.C. (1998). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank: five year report". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 5 (2): 75–79.
- ↑ Grigoryev, S.V. (2018). "Новые источники селекционно значимых признаков конопли из коллекции ВИР". Труды по прикладной ботанике, генетике и селекции (in русский). 179 (4): 50–57. doi:10.30901/2227-8834-2018-4-50-57.
- ↑ Lemeshev, N.; Rumyantseva, L.; Clarke, R.C. (1995). "Report on the maintenance of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) germplasm accessioned in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1994". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 2 (1): 10–13.
- ↑ Kutuzova, S.; Rumyantseva, L.; Clarke, R.C. (1996). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1995". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 3 (1): 10–12.
- ↑ Kutuzova, S.N.; Grigoryev, S.V.; Rumyantseva, L.T.; Clarke, R.C. (1998). "Maintenance of Cannabis germplasm in the Vavilov Research Institute Gene Bank – 1997". Journal of the International Hemp Association. 5 (1): 28–31.
- ↑ Welling, M.T.; Shapter, T.; Rose, T.J.; Liu, L.; Stanger, R.; King, G.J. (2016). "A belated green revolution for Cannabis: virtual genetic resources to fast-track cultivar development". Frontiers in Plant Science. 7 1113. doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01113.
- ↑ "Регламент и документы для подачи заявки на получение образцов из коллекции генетических ресурсов растений ВИР" [Rules and documents for requesting samples from the VIR plant genetic resources collection]. VIR (in русский). N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
- ↑ "Всероссийский институт генетических ресурсов растений имени Н.И. Вавилова" [N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources]. VIR (in русский). Retrieved 9 November 2026.