The effectiveness of breeding work on the improvement of the main economically important traits of traditional variety population Banannaya in Primorsky kray

   Relevance. Although there is notable success in breeding vegetable crops to obtain heterotic F1 hybrids, traditional selection methods have been gaining in popularity as a means of improving the economically important traits of local traditional varieties in Russia today. These varieties suffered the reduction in their valuable starting parameters (yield, the uniformity of marketable produce and biochemical composition) over the many years of reproduction. The Department of Potato Breeding and Horticulture (FSBSI “FSC of Agricultural Biotechnology of the Far East named after A. K. Chaiki”) have been working on the creation of new squash variety-populations with large fruits using the variety-population Banannaya 42, bred by V. Ya. Smolei at the Far Eastern experimental station of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Plant Breeding in the 1940s, as the starting material. We carried out a multi-year research on the selection of promising families belonging to this variety to increase yield, improve the uniformity of fruits and the main biochemical parameters.   Results. The breeding work conducted on the families of variety-population 945 in 2011-2022 resulted in the improvement of some economically important traits (the uniformity of fruit shape, yield, and biochemical parameters) compared to the started form. The eleven years of research allowed us to achieve high uniformity of fruit shape in the selection of the ninth year (PIP 2) – 90.0-90.7 % (increased by 34.9-36.0 %). The yield increased from 28.4 t/ha to 38.2-45.3 t/ha or by 34.5-59.5 %. The following biochemical parameters were improved through selection: the content of dry mater from 8.5 to 12.9 % or by 51.8 % on average, the content of sugars from 6.1 to 9.1 or by 49.2 %, the content of carotene from 1.7 to 3.8 or by 123.5 %, and the content of vitamin C from 9.6 to 21.1 or by 119.8 %. We selected the families of the same type from variety-population 945 (variety-population Banata) with improved and uniform economically important traits for submission to the State variety testing. The yield was 38.2-45.3 t/ha, fruits were heart-shaped, skin was greyish green, pulp was orange, and the content of sugars was 9.0-13.2 %. Large-fruited variety population Banata was included in the State register of breeding achievements admitted to use in the Russian Federation in 2024.