Actual physical, agronomic, genetical and breeding aspects in agrobiological management (towards 85 anniversary of Agrophysical Research Institute, Russia)

This overview dedicated to 85 anniversary of Agrophysical Research Institute gives a retrospective of agrophysics formation as a specific research field covering investigation of physical, agronomical and biological factors to control agroecological systems. The article describes achievement in physics, mathematics, biology and pedology that ensured transition from a descriptive agronomy to the agronomy based on evaluation of the factors essential for plant grow and development, on plant productivity calculation, and on managing productivity of crops by special agrotechnologies. The development of IT communication and precision agricultural technics equipped with detectors of global targeting system, specific sensors and software, as well as the use of geographic information systems led to a new conception of plant yield control, i.e. a precision agriculture. Our researches are focused on computer-aided design and realization of precise agrotechnologies in field conditions. Further progress in plant growing seems to be due to modern genetic and breeding allowing to improve precision agriculture both for populations and individual plants influenced by different ecogeographic conditions. Recent approaches in genetics can speed up breeding new varieties for specific use in precision agriculture. In two experiments which differed only in temperature and illumination regimes under invariability of other parameters, 99 QTL determining 30 agronomically important traits have been identified in spring soft wheat. According to QTL mapping and ANOVA, changes in the temperature and illumination regimes did not influence 21 of 30 studied traits, which remained stable in manifestation. Only nine traits varied under tested conditions, indicating their manifestation to depend on these environmental factors. Elucidation of the QTL effects allows further analysis of the identified correlations and interaction between QTL and environment under natural conditions. In turn, these data allow to provide expression of certain genetic determinants which control physiological basis for economically valuable traits in specific ecogeographic conditions.