The history of spring rapeseed breeding at V.S. Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops (review)

In USSR, the rapeseed production drown attention only in 70-ties of the last century. In VNIIMK, the full-scale breeding of spring rapeseed had been started by the organization of the laboratory of rapeseed breeding in 1983. The main task at the first stage was development of erucic acid free cultivars. The cultivar Kubansky (type “0”) became the first erucic acid free cultivar of rapeseed, which was differed from the foreign cultivars by the lowered content of linolenic acid in oil - 3.9%. Cultivars developed in 1982-1984 had stable level of erucic acid from 0.2 to 0.8%. The second stage of spring rapeseed breeding covers 1989-1993. It was aimed not only on increasing of oil quality but the cake quality too, namely decreasing of glucosinolate content in seeds to 15-16 µmol/g (type “00”). And in parallel, breeding works on increasing of oil content in seeds were conducted, as a result this trait meaning was changed from 42.4 to 47.6%. At the next stage in spring rapeseed breeding the main task was to decrease linolenic acid content and increase oleic acid content in oil using intraspecific hybridization, chemical mutagenesis, and self-pollination. The cultivar Viking-VNIIMK had linolenic acid content of 4%, and the cultivar Amulet - 77.5% of oleic acid in oil. The new stage in the spring rapeseed breeding is connected with development of yellow-seeded cultivars (type “000”). In 2023, the cultivar Kenar was included into the State register of the breeding achievements. To 2023, a scale of spring rapeseed cultivars of the different usage directions for food and other industries was developed in the institute. The last years, a new stage in spring rapeseed breeding has started, it is aimed on development of interlinear hybrids on CMS base, that do it possible to raise seed yield of this crop on the new level.