Development and establishment of the laboratory for plant immunity of the FSBSI “ARC “Donskoy”

The current paper has presented the stages of the development on plant protection study over 115 years and the history of the establishing and functioning of the laboratory for plant immunity since 1974 (50 years) at the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “ARC “Donskoy”. There has been presented the papers of such specialists in plant protection and immunity as Cheskis F. N., Deyanov I.G., Shchegolev V. N., Makarova V. A., Pronicheva L. L., Chala V. A. and others, who began their research from the beginning of the last century till its second half. Taking into account the immunological characteristics in conditions of infectious disease backgrounds of varieties and parental forms, there have been developed new grain varieties, combining high productivity with resistance to a complex of local populations of the main diseases and strong immunity to pests. The heads of the laboratory for plant immunity and protection set up in 1974 were Georgievskaya N. A., Derov A. I., Derova T. G., Shishkin N. V. (who is a current head). In the field plot there were formed infectious disease backgrounds and backgrounds with high pest numbers using both generally accepted methods and new ones developed by the laboratory staff, where there were studied up to 25–30 thousand samples of various crops annually. The staff developed methods for forming backgrounds with high pest numbers, there were improved and proposed simpler and more accurate methods for insect counts. In order to estimate the number of corn bug larvae, there was developed and proposed a convenient productive screencollector, as well as methods for accounting for corn thrips using test tubes and plastic bags and methods for identifying wheat and barley grain damaged by pests. In different years, there were studied such crops as maize, perennial grasses, peas, soybeans, and rice for resistance to diseases and pests. The identified resistant varieties and samples were given to breeders for using them in breeding programs for immunity. Many employees are co-authors of the developed varieties of various crops.