The Bureau of Applied Botany was organized in 1894 under the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property of the Russian Empire. In 1900, with R. E. Regel joining the Bureau, collections and evaluation of the Russian diversity of barley varieties began, and in 1905, when Regel was elected Head of the Bureau, this activity acquires a systematic character. In 1920, when N. I. Vavilov came to work at the Department of Applied Botany, all its activities were raised to a higher level. He organized famous explorations on five continents, significantly expanded the network of experiment stations and experiment sites for the evaluation and regeneration of the collected material, and set up a basis for the use of this material in breeding practice. All the work acquired a systematic character and employed uniform methodological approaches. All collection activities and evaluation of the collected material were supported by the development of Vavilov’s concepts published in monographs, collections of articles, and Soviet and foreign journals. The main goal of the work carried out at the All-Union Institute of Plant Industry was aimed at breeding new productive varieties of agricultural crops, which, according to Vavilov, occupied over 2 mln ha of crop areas in the USSR.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Vavilov’s ideas, his theoretical concepts and the activities of VIR played an important role in the organization and development of genebanks in Europe, as well as in the activities of FAO, IPGRI and other international organizations. Subsequently, not only Soviet, but also numerous foreign collecting missions followed the routes outlined by Vavilov to collect the initial material for breeding. From 1946 to 2023, VIR specialists conducted more than 1,000 collecting missions to various parts of the USSR, CIS, and Russia, and over 120 ones across five continents of the world to collect genetic diversity. All the collected material was comprehensively evaluated and propagated in the network of VIR experiment stations.
VIR took an active part in the creation of International Descriptors of COMECON countries for many agricultural crops, which formed the basis for the creation of the Multicrop Descriptor Lists under the guidance of IPGRI. Great attention has always been paid to the safe preservation of the VIR global collection, therefore a seed storage facility with three underground floors of storage space was built in 1976 at the Kuban Experiment Station of VIR. Currently, the Institute employs facilities for seed storage at +4°C, –10°C, and –20°C, as well as a cryogenic storage facility. Today, the VIR global collection contains more than 320,000 accessions of cultivated plants and their wild relatives, belonging to more than 2,500 botanical varieties, more than 2,1690 species, 376 genera, and 64 families. The VIR herbarium collection contains over 250,000 herbarium sheets collected in various regions of Russia and countries of the world.
The history of controlled preservation of collection accessions in the world numbers no more than 70 years. Currently, many researchers are curious whether plant germplasm accessions preserved in a genebank change genetically over time. There are 2,000 genebanks in the world that preserve over 7.4 million accessions of plant germplasm of more than 16,500 species, and about two million accessions (27%) are considered unique. The work of genebanks at the national and international level is influenced by the adequacy of funding and other external factors that often affect the safety of specific accessions of the collection. In addition, an accession under the long-term storage is affected by internal genetic (evolutionary) factors that must be taken into account in the work of a genebank. An accession entering the genebank should be regenerated and multiplied, and already at this stage the accession can have an altered genetic profile compared to that of the initial (original) specimen, since it can be affected by four evolutionary factors: selection, mutation, genetic drift and gene flow, acting in different preservation conditions of a genebank.
VIR reliably preserves the identity of collection accessions based on morphological (intraspecific systematic) features, which were and remain the basic tool in the work of the plant genetic resources departments. At the same time, taking into account the impact of evolutionary (genetic) factors in genebank operations will improve the development of effective working procedures and will benefit the long-term conservation of collection accessions. The problems of artificial selection, point mutations, genetic drift and gene flow in different plant species are likely to become central to the effective conservation of the unique accessions of the VIR global collection. At present, the activities of VIR as the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources, and the development of related legislative framework in Russia facilitate finding an effective solution to new challenges in the spheres of systematic collection, comprehensive evaluation, safe conservation, and sustainable use of plant genetic resources in the Russian Federation at a new level.

Biostatistics began to develop synchronously with the formation of the first collections of plant genetic resources (PGR) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the foundation of the PGR collection at VIR, the entire available range of experimental methods was employed in the field and in the laboratory to evaluate its genetic diversity according to phenotypic and genotypic indicators and to select accessions with a given set of characteristics for specific breeding tasks. The key point is to choose a statistical research method that is adequate to the task. The purpose of this review was to summarize typical statistical problems that arise during phenotypic assessments of PGR collections and methods appropriate for their solution.
When analyzing PGR collections, the basic element is to determine qualitative and quantitative characteristics of their accessions. Descriptive statistics methods make it possible to estimate the mean values and stability of economically valuable plant characters on the basis of several years of studying in one or more locations. These indicators are compiled into databases, included into catalogues constantly published by VIR, and used in the selection of accessions promising for breeding tasks.
It is often necessary to compare groups of accessions belonging to different species and having different geographic origin, test results in different ecogeographic environments, viability under various storage conditions, etc. The hypothesis of differences among several plant features or variants of the experiment based on sample data is tested using Student’s t-test and the analysis of variance. Modern methods for assessing the genotype × environment interaction are being actively developed.
The correlation and regression analysis is employed to identify weather and climate factors affecting valuable agronomic characters of accessions, such as yield, grain weight, resistance to biotic and abiotic factors, and quality indicators, and to find interrelationships among such characters that should be taken into account while developing a cultivar according to a given model. The active warming of the climate, which started in the 1970s, aroused the interest of biologists in disclosing crop yield trends and using time series analysis methods in regression modeling.
Those who describe a large PGR collection, examine phylogenetic relationships, select a representative sample, and build up core-collections would face a task of structuring the collection and identifying groups of similar accessions. The classification problem is solved by classification methods either without learning, such as the cluster analysis, or with learning, such as the discriminant analysis.
Analyzing PGR accessions for a large number of indicators requires identification of the most informative indicators, i.e., reducing the dimensions of the character space, accomplished by the principal component analysis or factor analysis techniques with a shift from real measured variables to a small number of hypothetical values, called factors.
The study of PGR collections is increasingly expanding beyond the limits of classical field observations of yield, for which biostatistics methods, based on the assumption of a normal distribution, were developed in the early 20th century. In the middle of the 20th century, nonparametric analytical methods and resampling techniques of computer simulation appeared.
The development of computers made it possible to make integrated data platforms that accumulated huge arrays of diverse PGR characteristics, and extend complex multidimensional methods available only to mathematicians to a wider range of researchers in various disciplines. Biostatistics methods associated with phenotypic data continue to evolve, ensuring improved assessment of the potential of PGR collections and providing integral information support to the modern genomic analysis.

Humankind has been exploiting fiber plants to meet its needs since time immemorial: first, collecting them in the wild, and later, cultivating and constantly improving them. Fiber can be obtained from seed (cotton, etc.), fruit (kapok, etc.), stems (flax, etc.), or leaves (sisal, etc.). Ten crops have become the most widespread in the world. FAO reports that cotton is the leader, with a total area of 31.8 million hectares in 2023, or 90.8% of the total land under fiber crops in the world. Jute is the second (4.4%), while sisal (0.8%), flax (0.7%), abacá (0.5%), kapok (0.5%), kenaf (0.4%), etc. aggregately account for a total of 4.8% of the land. According to the Federal Statistics Service, in 2023 flax was cultivated in Russia on an area of 35,200 hectares, hemp on 11,400 hectares, and cotton on 200 hectares. Today, with the advent of modern materials, these crops have not lost their significance, still occupying an important place in industry and in every person’s life. Depending on the features and quality characteristics, their fiber in its original, cottonized or chemically modified form is used for the production of various household and industrial fabrics, clothing, threads, ropes, wadding, disposable tableware and gunpowder, for stuffing pillows and seats, and in manufacturing composite materials for the automotive and aerospace industries. Their use reduces anthropogenic pressure on nature and provides industry with renewable raw materials.

About 90% of the global cultivated plant genetic resources are preserved as seed collections. The low-temperature storage of seed accessions allows for the reduction of the number of regenerations and for long term maintenance of high level seed viability. The article considers studies of the influence of various factors on seed longevity, which became the methodological basis for organizing low-temperature seed storage in plant genebanks. The presented cases of extreme seed longevity expand our knowledge of the capabilities of living organisms. The Genebank Standards (1994) and Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2014) provide information on the subdivision of collections into active, basic, and duplicate ones, which allows rational organization of storage and use of available material, as well as describe modern requirements to low-temperature storage conditions.

Flax (Linum L.) is a genus of Linaceae subf. Linoideae, which numbers from 180 to 230 species according to different classifications. Flaxes inhabit all continents, except Antarctica, but grow mainly in temperate and subtropical regions. Also, the species are extremely variable. Only the cultivated species Linum usitatissimum L. has economic importance. However, significance of other species, which can be used as ornamental plants, for soils remediation, and as additional feeding resource for pollinators, started increasing recently.

Flax is one of the oldest cultivated plants. For thousands of years, it has remained the most important industrial crop.
VIR’s fiber flax collection incorporates 2487 accessions, consisting of 825 landraces, 667 commercial cultivars, 774 breeding lines and 103 inbred lines, 29 lines of mutagenic origin, and 85 other accessions.
The geography of their origin expands to 49 countries. The germplasm arrived to the collection from the Russian Federation (51%), Europe (38%), Asia (7%), North America (0.7%), South America (2%), and Australia (0.3%), while the origin of 1% was not identified.
The collection includes 1274 accessions representing all the Federal Districts (FD) of Russia. More than 43% of Russian accessions came from the Central FD, about 30% from the Northwestern FD, almost 11% from the Siberian FD, more than 8% from the Volga FD, and more than 7% from the Far Eastern FD. The North Caucasian FD and the Southern FD are represented by only one landrace each.
The collection also contains 938 accessions from 26 countries, covering all parts of Europe: Eastern (375), Northern (302), Western (247) and Southern (14); 177 accessions came from all regions of Asia: Eastern (152), Central (17), Western (6) and Southern (2). North America is represented by 19 accessions from the U.S. and Canada; South America by 46 accessions from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia; Australia by 7 commercial cultivars. 
The collection of fiber flax is in demand: both the landraces and the material developed by breeders are promising for various breeding purposes.

Black currant has long been one of the most revered and beloved berry garden plants. It is valued for its high winter hardiness, productivity, fruiting precocity, and relatively undemanding cultivability. Among berry crops, black currant occupies one of the leading positions in terms of the content of nutrients and bioactive compounds necessary for a balanced human diet.
Russia is the world’s leader both in the production of black currant berries and in the number of released cultivars.
The gene pool of black currant maintained at VIR contains diverse genetic material of Ribes L., including accessions with well-known genes, cultivars serving as sources of important agronomic traits promising for breeding, and valuable species representatives.
The extensive genetic potential of the collection is a reliable cache of valuable source material for contemporary breeding.
The National Catalogue includes 360 accessions of the collection. These are primarily cultivars with known genes responsible for certain traits, sources of the most important agronomic and biological traits, and the most valuable species representatives.

Garden strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa (Weston) Duchesne ex Rozier) is the most widespread among Fragaria L. spp., with a leading position in industrial small-fruit cultivation. Significant progress in breeding high-yielding, transportable, large-fruited and disease-resistant cultivars led to losses in strawberry genetic diversity. The use of a limited number of ancestors in breeding programs caused a decrease in allelic diversity, which negatively affected such important characteristics as taste, flavor, and stress resistance. Genetic diversity conservation becomes critically important for the future of strawberry breeding and for ensuring product quality. All Fragaria spp. differ in their properties and traits controlled by various genes and combinations of genes, as well as in the degree of their expression. In general, they form the gene pool of the genus, which is of great value for contemporary and future strawberry breeding. In view of this, breeding centers and other scientific institutions working with this crop need to take upon themselves the mission to collect, preserve, study and utilized its genetic diversity.

The classification of the genus Vitis L., food value of grapevine, and its agronomic characteristics are discussed. In the past decades, grapevine breeders and viticulturists have made great efforts to develop and select new promising early-ripening grapevine hybrids of various origin, with resistance to extreme weather conditions. They are successfully cultivated far beyond the natural area of distribution. Rich experience has been accumulated by viticulturists of the Black Earth and Non-Black Earth Regions, the Baltic States, and the Far East of Russia. Recently released grapevine cultivars with frost resistance and a short growing season shifted the area of their cultivation far from the southern areas of Russia: to Moscow and Tver and even Novgorod and Leningrad Provinces, to Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories.
The history of the establishment and development of the ampelographic collection at the Vavilov Institute (VIR) is also highlighted. The data obtained at VIR’s experiment stations, situated during the Soviet period in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and presently in Dagestan, Primorsky and Krasnodar Territories, have been used to describe the structure of this collection. Promising measures to save and conserve rare grapevine cultivars and wild Vitis spp. are offered for the future.

This article highlights several stages in the life, scientific achievements, and organizational activities of Academician Sergei Vasilievich Shestakov, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Sergei Vasilievich Shestakov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, laureate of the USSR State Prize and the N.I. Vavilov Gold Medal of the RAS, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, and Honored Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation, is a recognized expert in the fields of genomics, molecular, radiation genetics and evolutionary genetics, and genetic engineering of microorganisms and plants. S.V. Shestakov made a significant contribution to the training of researchers and organization of science, and played a key role in the restoration and development of genetics in Russia: since 1980, he has headed the Department of Genetics at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), where he contributed to the modernization of the educational process, attracting a new generation of faculty, equipping the department with modern equipment, and developing new research areas; From 1988 to 1991, he headed the N.I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOGen), where he developed the state program «Priority Areas of Genetics» and supervised over 40 PhD candidates and 5 doctors of science. On behalf of the Vavilov Society of Geneticists and Breeders (VOGiS), we congratulate Academician Sergei Vasilyevich Shestakov on his anniversary and wish him good health, continued creative success, and the development of the scientific school he leads!