In 2010, All-Russian Research Institute of Vegetable Breeding and Seed Production is celebrating 90 years of existence. This article covers the latest scientific results and current explorations at the Institute.

On 9^th -12^th October, the 11th agricultural exhibition the «Golden Autumn» was held All-Russian Exhibition Centre. Agro-forum on «Agro-industrial complex is a base of the crisis management in Russia» was organized in course of the Agro-Exhibition.

Practical and scientific section on «Present status and prospects in garden pea breeding program and seed management» was held at All-Russian Research Institute of Vegetable Breeding and Seed Production. The problems concerning of home pea production and processing were discussed. The leading experts in pea breeding from different institutions of Russian Academy of Agricultural Science (Research institute of Plant Growing, Vavilove Institute of Plant Industry, Lomonosov State University, Research Institute of Canning Industry, etc.) joined together to share experience and prospects.

Autumn Session of State Duma announced the key questions concerning current agriculture. «The agriculture sector development and market management for agriculture products, raw materials, foodstuffs in 2008-2009 and realization of federal special proposals and programs in 2009» is a main subject to be progressively considered.

The subject of breeding and seed production has been studied as an innovative process, the result of which is new varieties and hybrids. At All-Russian Research Institute of Vegetable Breeding Production where the results of this complex system work can be exemplified. Cost efficiency of selection and seed production is analyzed, and methods of its perfection are offered. It has been proven that there is a necessity to build a State Corporation for seed production as a main link between modern economics and the seed production sector.

Creation and conservation of identified core collections of tomato that includes accessions with genes of agricultural valuable traits; mutants (trisomics, marked mutants with deletions, inversions, translocations); wild relatives; cultivated varieties; highly adapted local cultivars are the extremely necessary to start the nearest breeding program and genetic studies.

The significant variation has been shown in parameters of VNIISSOK's environmental area that have been tested for the several last years. This can be used for breeding program in vegetable marrow for plant adaptability. To perform the mass selection on at the effective level, the genotype testing on stability should be carried on for not less than 4 years. As result, the typicalness of environment has been high for most years of the study. To speed up the plant potentiality test there should be used the environmental area of the much higher productivity.

Plant cultivation that should be characterized by proper yield abilities is often limited in different arable lands for the reason of abiotic and biotic stress factors. Drought stress in plants causes the high content of soluble substances that have a high osmotic potential. The plant adaptation to the high osmotic pressure in drought condition may occur either by natural adaptation to changed environment or genotype population ability under selective breeding. To implement a quick test on drought tolerance, the influence of high osmotic pressure caused by the polyethilengly-col (P.E.G.) solution of different concentrations with molecular weight 8000Da on germinating seeds of Brassica rapa L. was studied.

Chinese cabbage plants, Vesniyanka cultivar, were grown under natural illumination in normal radiation and were placed in condition of periodic y-irradiation produced by the GAMMA-BREEZ source. The irradiation was carried out each 7 days for 4 hours with dose power 5 mSv/h. The summarized dose during all vegetation time was 80 mSv. The root zone of plants was moistened with water containing the different concentrations of deuterium. Radioactive influence on plants did not take effect in yielding abilities and ascorbic acid content in leaves. The reduction of deuterium concentration in water caused the plant productivity was twice as much as before, but otherwise it resulted the active accumulation of nitrates in leaves.

Fruit color of eggplants is one of the most important traits. In the fruit peel several anthocyanins were identified. It was shown that in fruits of Japanese accessions the basic an anthocyanin was delphinidin-3-(p-coumaroyl rutinoside)-5-glucoside (nasunin), while other accessions contained tulipanin (delphinidin-3-O-rutinoside). The breeding lines for hydroponic small-size cultivation that was selected by researchers from VNISSOK contained 0,021-0,2l7 grams of anthocyanin per kilogram.

Squashes and pumpkins are the vegetables of great importance not only in industrial scale but in gardening. This article presents the descriptions for cultivars of squashes and pumpkins selected by research group from VNIISSOK.

To reduce the expenses on plantlet cultivation stage the several vegetable production centers apply the direct planting into the soil without separate seedling cultivation. This paper describes the study concerning the interaction between early spring planting and output volume of vegetables. The Slava 1305 the cultivar of mid-maturing and Parus cultivar of mid-late maturing were also taken for the study.

In competitive market where vegetable seeds being sold widely by home and foreign companies, it is most important to improve management in seed production branch by the right-selected places where the seed production would be realized. This challenging task is that Russian Federation has various climatic and soil zones with different level of economic state.

The brief essay covers the topic subjects of Eucarpia 19 on Genetic Recourses 2009, 26^th - 29^th May. The challenging tasks and current trends toward exploration of Plant Genetic Resources are summarized in the article.

Artichoke is a very promising culture in the world due to a wide range of horticulturally valuable characteristics. Each 3 year the international symposiums take place around the world to join scientists, breeders, company managers, industrial experts. In this year, The «Bretagne Biotechnologie Vegetale» institute (France) was bidding to host the 7^th symposium on artichoke under the aegis of International Society for Horticulture Science ISHS, and other institutions.

On 14^th September, 2009, Tatiyana Alekseevna Zimina was 88 when she died. She was a recognizable scientist in biology, agro-ecology, a very active researcher, and an explorer of Sakhalin latitudes. Doctor in agricultural science, veteran of labour she worked as a head of biogeochemistry laboratory and was responsible for plant recourses of Sakhalin centre, Research Institute of Academy of Science, USSR from 1958 to 1968. Then there was a chance for her to be a head of ecology laboratory in All-Russian Research Institute of Vegetable Breeding and Seed Production VASKhNIL from 1975 to 1981. All her life, over 60 years, having been an unambitious patriot of her country she had devoted herself to the plant biology of vegetable crops. Her life course can be truly exemplified.