Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) are one of the main agricultural crops cultivated in the Murmansk Region. Severe climate conditions of the Kola Peninsula (low positive summer temperatures, polar day, early frosts in August and September) decrease the growing season length. The goal of breeding work in this region is to create the most productive cultivars. The right selection of parents is essential for the production of early ripening potato cultivars adopted to the local growing conditions. The hybrid potatoes bred at the Polar Experiment Station, a branch of VIR, have been evaluated for early ripeness, productivity, starch content, as well as for high taste quality.

The research has yielded characteristics of some promising potato hybrids produced in the conditions of the Murmansk Region. These potato hybrids can be used in a variety of breeding programs aimed at producing new potato cultivars suited for cultivation in extreme conditions of the Far North.

The paper summarizes the data on the distribution of Medicago × varia Martyn that has formed in the south of Siberia over the past 25 years, and presents new locations of variegated alfalfa in the Kemerovo and Irkutsk regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory, republics of Buryatia and Tyva, identified during a collecting mission organized in 2024 by the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources of the Russian Federation.

In loving memory of Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Alexey V. Konarev (1948–2025), a renowned scientist in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology, one of the oldest employees of VIR.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) was an intergovernmental organization that included Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia and operated from 1949 to 1991. In 1962, the member countries started scientific cooperation on the issues of collecting, studying, maintaining, and using the global plant resources of cultivated and wild plant species in order to create more productive and high-quality varieties and hybrids of agricultural crops. The long-standing collaboration between the mentioned countries led by the N.I. Vavilov All-Union Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), Leningrad, USSR (now the Federal Research Center, the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, VIR, St. Petersburg, Russia) resulted, inter alia, in creation of a unified system of descriptors, including both passport and descriptive characteristics of varieties. Descriptor lists were developed for each crop separately in two versions: a comprehensive unified version and an international version. Each descriptor list is a result of the joint efforts of scientists and specialists from COMECON member countries. On June 28, 1991 at the 46th Council Session in Budapest, the COMECON member countries signed the Protocol on the Dissolution of the Organization. This also marked the end of many years of work on publishing COMECON descriptor lists.

In order to reflect VIR’s international activities during the Soviet period, draw closer attention to plant descriptors, and clarify the titles of COMECON descriptor lists for authors of research papers, the editorial board of Vavilovia Journal decided to publish Selected comprehensive unified and international COMECON descriptor lists developed and published by VIR jointly with COMECON member countries in 1974–1990. For ease of use, the material is arranged chronologically. We hope this list will be useful to our readers and authors of research papers.