Pear breeding (Pyrus L.) modern achievements and directions in Russia (review)

According to FAOSTAT (2019), the gross harvest of pear fruits in the world is 23.9 million tons/year, including in Russia - 66 thousand tons/year, the leaders in production are China, the USA and Argentina. For the successful growth and development of most of the released pear varieties, it takes from 135 to 185 days of a frost-free period and 2200...3000 °C of the sum of effective temperatures, depending on the ripening period. The formation of a modern industrial assortment of pears in the Russian Federation is one of the ways to achieve the goals of the "Doctrine on Food Security of the Russian Federation" and it is difficult without an analysis of the existing achievements in science and production. The purpose of the work is to analyze information resources and determine the structure of the pear assortment in the Russian Federation, its ranking by ripening time, cultivation regions; available directions in crop selection and trends in its development. When performing the work, statistical data, information from open domestic and foreign sources were studied and used. As a result, it was found that 153 pear varieties are approved for use on the territory of the Russian Federation. 32 varieties are included in the register of protected achievements, of which 2 are foreign. Varieties are represented by summer, autumn and winter periods of consumption. The largest sorting share (46.4 %) is the group of the autumn ripening period. The share of varieties obtained by research organizations is 88 %. The breeding programs of the National Research University are aimed at creating highly adaptive varieties with high consumer qualities of fruits suitable for intensive horticulture. The intensification of the breeding process of this crop is currently impossible without modern biotechnological, genetic and biochemical methods.