Breeding Organizations Research Articles

Selection of terminal Piétrain pigs improves vitality and prevalence of congenital defects in crossbred piglets

Reducing piglet mortality and congenital defects is vital in pig production, as these traits substantially impact piglet welfare and lead to significant production losses. Additionally, piglets born with congenital defects often demand extra attention and resources from pig farmers. Nowadays, most breeders have shifted towards a more balanced breeding within their maternal pig lines, with a focus on both reproductive capacity and survival traits. However, few studies have investigated the influence of paternal sire genetics on crossbred piglets’ vitality and congenital defects. In this study, we evaluated the impact of an ongoing Piétrain sire breeding program on these traits in crossbred piglets that started in 2019. This study was based on two unique datasets with litter records collected between 2016 and 2024 on four independent commercial sow farms. The first dataset was collected by the breeding organization and consisted of 12,010 crossbred litters (Piétrain sire, hybrid dam; two farms) scored on piglets’ vitality, number of piglets with porcine congenital splay leg syndrome and scrotal hernia, pre-weaning mortality and the number of piglets born death. A second dataset (5,380 crossbred litters; two farms) was collected by ILVO (Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food), using 426 Piétrain boars common to the first dataset of the breeding organization. Using a genetic sire-dam model, the studied traits were estimated to be lowly heritable (h2 = 5.2 to 15.6%). Moreover, vitality scores were genetically moderately correlated with preweaning mortality (rg=-0.59) and porcine congenital splay leg syndrome (rg=-0.52). Evolutions of phenotypic records and estimated breeding values since the start of the breeding program indicate a positive impact on piglet survival and prevalence of porcine congenital splay leg syndrome. The observed prevalence for porcine congenital splay leg syndrome roughly halved from ±1% in 2019 to ±0.5% in 2024, while for pre-weaning mortality, the observed prevalence dropped from ±17% in 2019 to ±14% in 2024. A joint analysis of the datasets showed a moderate to high genetic correlation (rg=0.52 to 0.84) for porcine congenital splay leg syndrome and pre-weaning mortality, indicating the translatability of estimated breeding values for terminal sires to new farms, specifically for these traits. In conclusion, these results show that paternal pig breeding programs can be effective in substantially improving piglets’ vitality while reducing porcine congenital splay leg syndrome and pre-weaning mortality. Due to the pressing societal demands for more animal welfare and the economic impact of these traits, we show other pig breeding companies the important role of paternal pig genetics towards improved piglet vitality and a reduction of congenital defects.

Coffee breeding in a time of crisis: F1 hybrids in Central America since 1990

Social Impact StatementCentral America is renowned for producing some of the world's finest coffee, prized for its quality and flavor. With coffee being a major export crop for many countries, the region's economic, social, and cultural well‐being is closely linked to the success of its coffee industry. Coffee breeding supports the industry's long‐term sustainability and competitiveness by developing new varieties that are more productive, disease‐resistant, climate resilient, and adapted to the coffee producer's realities. Ongoing efforts in coffee breeding have significant implications for the livelihoods of thousands of coffee farmers and their families, the economies of Central American countries, and the preservation of the region's rich coffee tradition and culture.Summary The central objective is to understand how coffee breeding programs have evolved to help coffee farmers adapt to the rapidly changing economic, political, institutional, and environmental conditions since 1990. Before then, coffee breeders focused primarily on productivity, developing dwarf varieties bred for intensive monoculture production. Since 1990, breeders have shifted their work to address climate change, new diseases and pests, a growing industry interest in cup quality, and unprecedented price volatility. Much of the breeding work has shifted from public institutions to international technical assistance agencies, international non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), and private companies. Their new programs focus on developing F1 coffees designed for agroforestry production and, which, can be developed quickly in response to changing conditions. This case study also complicates narratives about the place of hybrid coffees in agricultural modernization during the 20th and 21st centuries. Analyze documents produced over the past 30 years by key breeding organizations, governments, trade organizations, to assess the evolution of breeding programs in historical context, and the progress of the new coffees in the field. Some F1 hybrids have shown considerable promise, but challenges surrounding their propagation, distribution, and cost—as well as their suitability for the specialty coffee market—have so far prevented farmers from adopting them on a large scale. The switch to F1 coffee breeding represents a deep strategic shift in coffee breeding in Central America, more attuned to the needs of coffee farmers. While the F1 coffees can help farmers address many of the farmers' technical challenges, cost and logistical issues remain a challenge.

Heritability and Repeatability Estimates for Milk Production Traits Using Phenotypic, Pedigree-Based and Genomic Data of Serbian Holstein Cows

Summary This research aims to estimate heritability and repeatability based on the data on milk production traits (MY – milk yield; FY – milk fat yield; FC – milk fat content; PY – milk protein yield and PC – milk protein content) as well as pedigree and genomic information. A total of 6,041 animals were included in the research, while 2,565 of them had data for milk production traits. In order to form a genomic relationship matrix, 58K SNP data were used for a total of 1,491 cows. Several software tools were used in the preparation and analysis of data, which were provided by the Central Breeding Organization, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad. PreGSF90, in combination with RENUMF90, was used for quality control of genomic information. Genetic analysis was performed in WOMBAT software by the REML using standard repeatability univariate analysis (BLUPpe) and repeatability models for genomic prediction (GBLUPpe and ssGBLUPpe). In all three analyses, the highest heritability (0.410, 0.378 and 0.389, respectively) and repeatability (0.449, 0.429 and 0.440, respectively) were calculated for FC. Heritability estimates for all other traits were lower. Heritability ranged from 0.158 to 0.185 for MY, from 0.166 to 0.178 for FY, from 0.141 to 0.154 for PY and from 0.135 to 0.221 for PC. Heritability estimates indicate that it is possible to achieve genetic improvement but it is necessary to introduce the best model for prediction of breeding values of cow.

Analysis of inbreeding of the Latvian local goat breed

The objective of this study was to perform an analysis of the pedigree of the Latvian Old-Type Local Goat (LVKVT) breed to estimate the levels of inbreeding and effective population size using pedigree data. The study was based on the pedigree data of 1596 goats that were alive at the time of data selection in 2019. During the last ten years, the average generation interval for male goats was 4.40 ± 0.20 years, for female goats – 4.34 ± 0.16 years. Pedigree information on the LVKVT goats from the 1st to the 6th generation was available from 1989. For animals born in 2006 and later, the completeness of the pedigree for the first generation was from 83.9 % and in 2019 reached 100 %. Starting from 2014, the completeness of the second and third generations of pedigree exceeded 80 %. During the last decade, the average inbreeding level in population varied from 3.05 % in 2012 to 2.30 % in 2019. However, the number of inbred animals in the LVKVT population has increased and in 2019 the number of inbred animals was 109 with an average rate of inbreeding of 5.94 %. The rate of inbreeding is increased and in 2019 was 0.56. The effective population size based on the rate of inbreeding is decreased and 2019 was 89, and it is not below of recommended FAO effective population size – 50 animals. However, the breeding organization of goats must be monitored the effective population size of LVKVT breed every year to provide the development of strategies for breeding programs which would promote preserve genetic diversity.

The men who feed the world? Putting masculinities on the agenda for crop breeding research for development

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields that are dominated by men and masculine have historically been shown to lead to poor representation and discrimination of women and gender diverse scientists, managers, and leaders. This in turn negatively impacts inclusive innovation processes and outcomes. We claim that crop breeding is one such field that is undeniably dominated by men, and even masculine, and could therefore harbor the very same dynamics of exclusion. Yet there is a dearth of research systematically investigating how masculinities are performed in the institutions, organizations, cultures, discourses, and practices of crop breeding. In this Perspective piece, we present a theoretically informed hypothesis of crop breeding organizations as representing spaces where masculinities associated with rurality, management, and science and technology come together in ways that may marginalize women and gender diverse individuals, including in intersection with sexuality, race, ethnicity, and disability. In developing this hypothesis, we draw upon theoretical and empirical insights from masculinity studies in rural sociology, management and organization studies, and feminist technoscience studies. We demonstrate how critical men and masculinities studies can help expose masculinities in crop breeding to investigation, discussion, criticism, and change. As we seek to advance equality in and through crop breeding organizations, this framing helps to guide future research with potential to positively impact the culture of crop breeding research.

Comparative indexing of early-maturing corn hybrids in multi-environment trial

The article shows the results of a multi-environment trial which was conducted in 2022 to determine the adaptability of corn hybrids and identify genotypes which are better to choose for a short growing season. Ten new early-maturing (FAO 130-150) corn hybrids were studied in 6 plant breeding organisations – ecological sites in 4 soil-climatic zones of Russia such as the Central Black Earth region, North Caucasus, Urals, West Siberia. The corn hybrids were evaluated by plasticity (bi), stability (σd2) and selection indices: the breeding value of the cultivar (Svc), the selection index (Si) and the selection value index of the cultivar (Ssvi). Nalchik (Ij = +1.51), Belgorod (Ij = +0.18) and Voronezh (Ij = +0.04) had favourable environmental conditions, unfavourable environments were in Chelyabinsk (Ij = -1.09), Omsk (Ij = -0.56) and Pyatigorsk (Ij = -0.08). Hybrid 140/26 had the highest grain yield (6.50 t/ha) on average, it exceeded the best standard by 1.15 t/ha. The hybrids 140-28 had the highest mean yield (7.66 t/ha) and 140/24 (7.65 t/ha) under favourable conditions, hybrid 100/28 was the best (5.42 t/ha) in unfavourable environments. Hybrids 100/24 (18.7 %), 140/25 (19.0 %), 100/27 (20.5 %) had the lowest grain moisture at harvest. Hybrids 140/24 (bi = 1.82, σd2 = 0.08), 140/28 (bi = 1.54, σd2 = 0.09), 100/26 (bi = 1.45, σd2 = 0.17) with high ecological plasticity and stability were recommended to grow under intensive growing conditions. It was shown that the application of the technique for evaluating corn hybrids by selection indices makes it possible to identify regionally oriented genotypes. It is better to grow hybrids 100/28 (Svic = 8.44) и 100/27 (Svic = 8.26), which had an optimal balance of environmental stability, grain yield and grain moisture at harvest, in unfavourable conditions with a short growing season.

Indigenous cattle of Sri Lanka: Genetic and phylogeographic relationship with Zebu of Indus Valley and South Indian origin.

The present study reports the population structure, genetic admixture and phylogeography of cattle breeds of Sri Lanka viz. Batu Harak, Thawalam and White cattle. Moderately high level of genetic diversity was observed in all the three Sri Lankan zebu cattle breeds. Estimates of inbreeding for Thawalam and White cattle breeds were relatively high with 6.1% and 7.2% respectively. Genetic differentiation of Sri Lankan Zebu (Batu Harak and White cattle) was lowest with Red Sindhi among Indus Valley Zebu while it was lowest with Hallikar among the South Indian cattle. Global F statistics showed 6.5% differences among all the investigated Zebu cattle breeds and 1.9% differences among Sri Lankan Zebu breeds. The Sri Lankan Zebu cattle breeds showed strong genetic relationships with Hallikar cattle, an ancient breed considered to be ancestor for most of the Mysore type draught cattle breeds of South India. Genetic admixture analysis revealed high levels of breed purity in Lanka White cattle with >97% Zebu ancestry. However, significant taurine admixture was observed in Batu Harak and Thawalam cattle. Two major Zebu haplogroups, I1 and I2 were observed in Sri Lankan Zebu with the former predominating the later in all the three breeds. A total of 112 haplotypes were observed in the studied breeds, of which 50 haplotypes were found in Sri Lankan Zebu cattle. Mismatch analysis revealed unimodal distribution in all the three breeds indicating population expansion. The sum of squared deviations (SSD) and raggedness index were non-significant in both the lineages of all the three breeds except for I1 lineage of Thawalam cattle (P<0.01) and I2 lineage of Batu Harak cattle (P<0.05). The results of neutrality tests revealed negative Tajima's D values for both the lineages of Batu Harak (P>0.05) and White cattle (P>0.05) indicating an excess of low frequency polymorphisms and demographic expansion. Genetic dilution of native Zebu cattle germplasm observed in the study is a cause for concern. Hence, it is imperative that national breeding organizations consider establishing conservation units for the three native cattle breeds to maintain breed purity and initiate genetic improvement programs.

Current status and future strategy for Istrian goat protection, conservation, and promotion

The Istrian goat is one of three Croatian autochthonous national breeds. It is white in color, with typically long horns and beards, and a large body frame. Due to the small number of living individuals, it is considered a critically endangered breed. It was reaffirmed and protected in 2013. Since then, several necessary steps for its revival have been taken, including gathering information on all existing animals and breeders, taking body measurements and genotypization of goats, and founding the breeding organization. In late 2022, a plan was started to revive, promote and commercialize the breed.

Preductal Segmental Tubular Aortic Hypoplasia in Perinatally Died Stabyhoun Puppies.

A high perinatal mortality rate in the Stabyhoun breed prompted one of the Dutch breeding organizations to start an investigation. Preductal segmental tubular aortic hypoplasia is an extremely rarely documented congenital vascular anomaly in dogs, and it is suspected to be the result of constriction of ectopic ductal tissue in the aortic wall at birth. Over a period of 18 months, Stabyhoun puppies that were stillborn, died or were euthanized before 3 weeks of age were submitted to post-mortem examination at the reporting institution. Pathologic findings were documented. Eight Stabyhoun puppies were submitted during the study period. In five of them, a severe preductal segmental tubular aortic hypoplasia was found. Two of the five puppies were stillborn, and three died spontaneously or were euthanized. Preductal tubular aortic hypoplasia was found in an unusually high frequency in the examined Stabyhoun puppies. Because the condition is believed to cause clinical signs only after birth, this anomaly cannot explain the death of the stillborn puppies. However, it might be responsible for cardiogenic pulmonary edema in the postnatal period. Routine dissection of the great vessels in perinatally deceased puppies would help to establish the prevalence of congenital anomalies of the aorta.

A variety test platform for the standardization and data quality improvement of crop variety tests.

Variety testing is an indispensable and essential step in the process of creating new improved varieties from breeding to adoption. The performance of the varieties can be compared and evaluated based on multi-trait data from multi-location variety tests in multiple years. Although high-throughput phenotypic platforms have been used for observing some specific traits, manual phenotyping is still widely used. The efficient management of large amounts of data is still a significant problem for crop variety testing. This study reports a variety test platform (VTP) that was created to manage the whole workflow for the standardization and data quality improvement of crop variety testing. Through the VTP, the phenotype data of varieties can be integrated and reused based on standardized data elements and datasets. Moreover, the information support and automated functions for the whole testing workflow help users conduct tests efficiently through a series of functions such as test design, data acquisition and processing, and statistical analyses. The VTP has been applied to regional variety tests covering more than seven thousand locations across the whole country, and then a standardized and authoritative phenotypic database covering five crops has been generated. In addition, the VTP can be deployed on either privately or publicly available high-performance computing nodes so that test management and data analysis can be conveniently done using a web-based interface or mobile application. In this way, the system can provide variety test management services to more small and medium-sized breeding organizations, and ensures the mutual independence and security of test data. The application of VTP shows that the platform can make variety testing more efficient and can be used to generate a reliable database suitable for meta-analysis in multi-omics breeding and variety development projects.

Reproductive capacity and milk production of cows depending on their physio-logical status during lactation

Due to violation of husbandry, feeding, milking, non-observance of sanitary requirements, especially in postpartum period, cases of endometritis, mastitis and limb diseases in cows increase in conditions of intensive cattle breeding. These diseases adversely affect reproductive and productive qualities of animals, thus causing great financial losses to agribusiness. Therefore, increasing longevity of animals, reducing percentage of their elimination due to various diseases, reducing risk of economically significant diseases in dairy herds by selecting highly productive animals with high resistance to common diseases are relevant. The aim of the research was to study phenotypic relationship between fertility level and milk production of black-motley Holsteinized cows with different diseases at the farm in Moscow region. The research materials were 1234 records of diseases - endometritis, mastitis and limb diseases - obtained from veterinary outpatient logs (2015-2021) of the breeding organization. Information about 5 signs of milk productivity and 3 signs of fertility of the studied population of black-motley Holsteinized dairy cattle was taken from Seleks database. According to the results, significant (p 0.01) increase was observed in sick animals in comparison with healthy ones: number of inseminations per lactation - b y 33.5 %, open days - b y 7.3 %, milk days - b y 4.35 %. Milk yield was higher by 19.4 % (p 0.01), fat and protein mass fraction - by 0.32 and 0.33 % (p 0.01), respectively, fat and protein yield - b y 82 and 69 kg (p 0.01), respectively, compared to healthy animals. When comparing the indices in animals with one, two and three diseases, significant differences were obtained both between the groups with single diseases and complexes. For fertility traits, the indices increased significantly with the number of diseases from 4 to 20 % for individual traits. For milk production traits, there was a tendency for indices to decrease with increasing number of diseases.

Integration of Interbull's multiple across-country evaluation approach breeding values into the multiple-trait single-step random regression test-day genetic evaluation for yield traits of Australian Red breeds

Interbull's multiple across-country evaluaftion provides national breeding organizations with breeding values for internationally used bulls, which integrate performance data obtained in different breeding populations, environments, and production systems. However, breeding value-based selection decisions on domestic individuals born to foreign sires can only benefit from Interbull breeding values if they are integrated such that their information can contribute to the breeding values of all related domestic animals. For that purpose, several methods have been proposed which either model Interbull breeding values as prior information in a Bayesian approach, as additional pseudo data points, or as correlated traits, where these methods also differ in their software and parameterization requirements. Further, the complexity of integration also depends on the traits and genetic evaluation models. Especially random regression models require attention because of the dimensionality discrepancy between the number of Interbull breeding values and the number of modeled genetic effects. This paper presents the results from integrating 16,063 Interbull breeding values into the domestic single-step random regression test-day model for milk, fat, and protein yield for Australian Red dairy cattle breeds. Interbull breeding values were modeled as pseudo data points with data point-specific residual variances derived within animal across traits, ignoring relationships between integrated animals. Results suggest that the integration was successful with regard to alignment of Interbull breeding values with their domestic equivalent as well as with regard to the individual and population-wide increase in reliabilities. Depending on the relationship structure between integration candidates, further work is required to account for those relationships in a computationally feasible manner. Other traits with separate parity effects nationally could use a similar approach, even if not modeled with a test-day model.

Estimating genetics of body dimensions and activity levels in pigs using automated pose estimation

Pig breeding is changing rapidly due to technological progress and socio-ecological factors. New precision livestock farming technologies such as computer vision systems are crucial for automated phenotyping on a large scale for novel traits, as pigs’ robustness and behavior are gaining importance in breeding goals. However, individual identification, data processing and the availability of adequate (open source) software currently pose the main hurdles. The overall goal of this study was to expand pig weighing with automated measurements of body dimensions and activity levels using an automated video-analytic system: DeepLabCut. Furthermore, these data were coupled with pedigree information to estimate genetic parameters for breeding programs. We analyzed 7428 recordings over the fattening period of 1556 finishing pigs (Piétrain sire x crossbred dam) with two-week intervals between recordings on the same pig. We were able to accurately estimate relevant body parts with an average tracking error of 3.3 cm. Body metrics extracted from video images were highly heritable (61–74%) and significantly genetically correlated with average daily gain (rg = 0.81–0.92). Activity traits were low to moderately heritable (22–35%) and showed low genetic correlations with production traits and physical abnormalities. We demonstrated a simple and cost-efficient method to extract body dimension parameters and activity traits. These traits were estimated to be heritable, and hence, can be selected on. These findings are valuable for (pig) breeding organizations, as they offer a method to automatically phenotype new production and behavioral traits on an individual level.

WheatNet: A lightweight convolutional neural network for high-throughput image-based wheat head detection and counting

For a globally recognized plant breeding organization, manually recorded field observation data is crucial for plant breeding decision making. However, certain phenotypic traits such as plant color, height, kernel counts, etc. can only be recorded during a specific time-window of a crop’s growth cycle. Due to labor-intensive requirements, only a small subset of possible field observations are recorded each season. To help mitigate this data collection bottleneck in wheat breeding, we propose a novel deep learning framework to accurately and efficiently count wheat heads to aid in the gathering of real-time data for decision making. We call our model WheatNet and show that our approach is robust and accurate for a wide range of environmental conditions of the wheat field. WheatNet uses a truncated MobileNetV2 as a lightweight backbone feature extractor which merges feature maps with different scales to counter image scale variations. Then, extracted multi-scale features go to two parallel sub-networks for simultaneous density-based counting and localization tasks. The proposed method uses only point-level annotations for both counting and localization which is less labor-intensive compared to box-level annotations. Our proposed method achieves an MAE and RMSE of 3.85 and 5.19 in our wheat head counting task, respectively, while having significantly fewer parameters when compared to other state-of-the-art methods. Our experiments and comparisons with other state-of-the-art methods demonstrate the superiority and effectiveness of our proposed method.

Better performance of organic than conventional tomato varieties in single and mixed cropping

ABSTRACT Replacing traditional crop varieties with commercial, high-yielding varieties during the last decades is one of the main drivers for the decline in farmland and crop diversity. However, it is unclear how commercial, high-yielding varieties adapt to less environmental conditions such as weed pressure and mixed cropping cultivation systems. In Europe, organic breeding organizations conserve local, traditional varieties and develop new varieties under low-input conditions, aiming at increasing the range of varieties adapted to harsh cultivation conditions and mixed cropping. To evaluate whether organic varieties (i) cope better with weed pressure and (ii) have a higher adaptability to mixed cropping, we compared the agronomic and quality performance of eight organic varieties with eight commercial, high-yielding varieties, focusing on tomato, the economically most important vegetable in the EU. Each group was cultivated as single plants and in a mixed cropping system, respectively, with a legume and with or without exposure to weed stress by a grass. The organic group outperformed the commercial, high-yielding group, specifically, in mixed cropping systems. Weed stress lowered the yield of both groups, but the organic group showed higher fruit weight stability across the varieties than the commercial, high-yielding varieties when grown as single plants under weed stress.

Structure of the holstein dairy cattle subpopulation in Russia by locus CSN2 and CSN3

Purpose: to determine the potential of the Russian subpopulation of the Holstein breed in relation to selection by loci of beta-and kappa-casein.Materials and methods. For loci CSN2 and CSN3, 1,539 Holstein cattle were genotyped, including 1,242 cows and heifers and 297 sires, and information on CSN2 and CSN3 genotypes of 297 US bulls was analyzed (World Wide Sires, Ltd).Results. It has been established that in the last two years there has been an increase in the percentage of sires in WWS with CSN2 genotypes A2A2 and CSN3 genotypes BB. Thus, sires allele frequency in the 2019 catalog was 0.51 and 0.29, respectively; and in the 2021 catalog was 0.68 and 0.31, respectively.Genotyped sires of domestic breeding organizations, which are mostly foreign origin, were characterized by predominance of the A2 allele CSN2; in this group the frequency of the allele was 0.63. However, the CSN3 B allele in the group of sires belonging to domestic organizations was found with a frequency of 0.34, which is 1.6 times lower than that of sires of American origin.In the genotyped group of Holstein cows and heifers (n = 1242) belonging to 3 large farms in the Krasnodar Krai, the gene frequency CSN2 allele A2 was minimal (0.57), and the CSN3 allele B (0.40) was higher than the allele frequency in the sires group of domestic breeding enterprises.Conclusion. At present, Russian breeding enterprises and farms are lagging behind in these indicators, however, by conducting targeted selection in accordance with the indicated trend, by selecting the appropriate breeding bulls, it is possible in the next generation to increase the proportion of animals carrying valuable genotypes.

ADAPTABILITY OF DOMESTIC POTATO VARIETIES IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE NON-BLACK EARTH REGION OF RUSSIA

The article presents the study results on a comprehensive assessment of varieties from the Velikiye Luki State Agricultural Academy collection in the conditions of the Nonblack Earth Region of Russia. The data were obtained for the Pskov and Tver regions. The varieties of the collection belong to different ripeness groups and were obtained by different selective breeding organizations. The adaptive potential of potato varieties of&#x0D; different ripeness groups under annually changing weather conditions has been estimated. In the course of research, varieties with high plasticity and productivity were identified. All varieties are characterized by high yield and resistance to diseases.

Nomenclatural standards of black currant cultivars bred by Sverdlovsk Horticultural Breeding Station. Part I

In the herbarium of cultivated plants of the world, their wild relatives and weeds (WIR) a collection of nomenclatural standards for cultivars of domestic breeding is being created. Nomenclatural standards are carriers of the authenticity of the genetic information of the breeding achievements and should be kept indefinitely in the scientific herbarium collection. A herbarium sample collected with the direct participation of an expert, which can be the author of the cultivar or official representative of the author's breeding organization, is designated as the nomenclature standard. The nomenclatural standard confirms the originality of the cultivar, protects the copyright of its creators. The article publishes the nomenclature standards of 10 black currant (Ribes nigrum L.) cultivars, bred at Sverdlovsk Horticultural Breeding Station from 1983 to 1997 and included into the State Register of Breeding Achievements: Akkord (WIR-54112), Vasilisa (WIR-54115), Vympel (WIR-54118), Globus (WIR-54119), Dobry Dzhinn (WIR-54121), Pilot (WIR-54127), Slavyanka (WIR-54129), Udalets (WIR-54132), Fortuna (WIR-54133), Shaman (WIR-54134). In addition to the description of the nomenclature standards, the distinctive taxonomic and economically valuable traits of each cultivar are given. Herbarium samples of nomenclature standards are made in accordance with the recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), registered in the database "VIR Herbarium" and included in the Herbarium of cultivated plants of the world, their wild relatives and weeds (WIR).

An applied deep learning approach for estimating soybean relative maturity from UAV imagery to aid plant breeding decisions

For a global breeding organization, identifying the next generation of superior crops is vital for its success. Recognizing new genetic varieties requires years of in-field testing to gather data about the crop’s yield, pest resistance, heat resistance, etc. At the conclusion of the growing season, organizations need to determine which varieties will be advanced to the next growing season (or sold to farmers) and which ones will be discarded from the candidate pool. Specifically for soybeans, identifying their relative maturity is a vital piece of information used for advancement decisions. However, this trait needs to be physically observed, and there are resource limitations (time, money, etc.) that bottleneck the data collection process. To combat this, breeding organizations are moving towards advanced image capturing devices. In this paper, we develop a robust and automatic approach for estimating the relative maturity of soybeans using a time series of UAV images. An end-to-end hybrid model combining Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is proposed to extract features and capture the sequential behavior of time series data. The proposed deep learning model was tested on six different environments across the United States Results suggest the effectiveness of our proposed CNN-LSTM model compared to the local regression method. Furthermore, we demonstrate how this newfound information can be used to aid in plant breeding advancement decisions.

ANALYSIS PEDIGREE OF LIVESTOCK OF POLISSIAN BEEF CATTLE BREED IN SFG «VERES»

ANALYSIS PEDIGREE OF LIVESTOCK OF POLISSIAN BEEF CATTLE BREED IN SFG «VERES»