Desk and field studies of four turnip cultivars (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa) bred in VIR using material from the Brassicaceae root crops collection (VIR) have been conducted. Nomenclatural standards for two fodder turnip cultivars ‘Bortfeldskij’ and ‘Hibinskij’, and two vegetable turnip cultivars ‘Karel’skaâ’ and ‘Soloveckaâ’, mantained in the VIR collection, were prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) and registered in the VIR Herbarium database. The nomenclatural standard of each cultivar is represented by a herbarium sheet that contains parts of a plant in the first year of development, which bear the main cultivar characteristics of the crop, i.e. the rosette leaf and root, supplemented by photos and seed samples. The prepared specimens were deposited at the Herbarium of Cultivated Plants of the World, their Wild Relatives and Weeds (WIR) at the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources.

Cultivated amaranth has nutritional value due to the balanced content of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, trace elements and minerals in seeds and leaves, and also is characterized by intensive growth, high productivity of seeds and biomass. In Russia, amaranths have not attracted much interest as cultivated plants for a long time. Academician N.I. Vavilov pointed out the need to use them in agriculture as a new forage crop back in 1932.

VIR conducted breeding work to create a new midseason cultivar ‘Frant’. The source material for breeding was collected by the author of the cultivar D.V. Sokolova during an expedition to India in 2018. The cultivar is recommended as a source of raw material for obtaining a natural food colorant, for using shoots as food and making tea from leaves, and also as an ornamental plant. In accordance with the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants, the nomenclatural standard of Amaranthus cruenthus L. ‘Frant’ was prepared and registered in 2024.

The herbarium collections of Russia have been inventoried for determining the preserved diversity of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) collected in the Russian part of Altai. It was found that the collected specimens of H. vulgare s.l. from this region, the total of 40 accessions, are represented only in the Herbarium of Cultivated Plants of the World, their Wild Relatives and Weeds (WIR) at the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR), excluding one herbarium sheet preserved in the Altai State University (ALTB). Among the Altai herbarium accessions of cultivated barley in the WIR collection, the dominating one is H. vulgare subsp. vulgare var. pallidum Ser. (36 accessions). Other botanical varieties are represented by few accessions: H. vulgare subsp. distichon var. nutans Schuebl. by two, and H. vulgare subsp. vulgare var. coeleste and H. vulgare subsp. distichon var. erectum Rode ex Schuebl. by one each. Herbarium sheets contain plants grown from seed accessions of Altai ancient varieties (landraces) preserved at VIR, which were collected in Altai in the first half of the 19th century. The studied herbarium samples will be used in studies of the diversity of H. vulgare and the history of its formation in the Russian part of Altai using modern molecular genetic methods.

The publication provides a brief historical overview of surveys of Uzbekistan by expeditionary teams of the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR). In the plant-growing sense, the territory of the republic is a part of the Central Asian Сenter of origin of cultivated plants, which is the birthplace of many types of fruit, vegetable, grain and legume crops. The variety of natural conditions and the extreme antiquity of the agricultural culture of these places contributed to the accumulation and formation of an exceptional wealth of plant forms. The vegetation of the foothill and mountainous territories of Uzbekistan is characterized by active formation of new forms among its representatives. From 1912 to 2023, VIR organized 105 expeditions to study plant genetic resources. The analysis of the collected materials showed that the most productive studies were conducted in 1966–1991, which were carried out on the basis of the Central Asian Experiment Station of VIR, which operated a permanent expedition team. The article summarizes the main results of collecting activities and presents the most significant publications on them, showing that Uzbekistan is currently of interest, first of all, for the search for drought-resistant, heat-resistant, and salt-resistant plant forms.

The conceptional shifts on genome organization and hereditary variability occurred during transition from classical mendelian to current mobile or dynamic genetics. The main changed premises of this transition are firstly presented in detail. Mendelian genetics mainly conceived genome as the set of chromosomes with of all genes. Now genome semantics is changed. It comprises entire hereditary constitution of the cell, including both structural and dynamic aspects of coding, storage and transfer of species-specific information. There are three kinds of heritable changes: mutations, variations and epigenetic alterations. It is reasonable to discriminate in the genome two subsystems: Obligate genetic elements (OGE) and Facultative genetic elements (FGE). FGEs comprise various kinds of repeated DNA, mobile elements, amplicons, inserted viral and foreign DNA, B-chromosomes and cytobionts. FGEs are predominant genome content of many plants. The number and cell topography of FGEs are different in different cells/tissues and most eukaryote individuals. Changes in the structure or order of OGEs correspond to classical mutations. Various changes in FGEs it is reasonable to call variations. Facultative elements and their variations are the first genomic reaction on biotic and environmental challenges. Together with epigenetic alterations they implement the operational genomic memory. Three template genome processes Replication, Transcription, Translation and three basic genetic processes – Repair, Recombination and Segregation are capable to facultative expression according to principle: the unity of the whole and freedom of the parts. This is the essence of the presented generalized concept of the genome organization and hereditary variations.