134th birth anniversary of V.S. Pustovoit

January 15, 2020 marks the 134th birth anniversary of Pustovoit Vasily Stepanovich, the founder of our institute, the world-famous breeder, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, doctor of agriculture, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the All-Union Agricultural Academy. The institute workers honoured the memory of V.S. Pustovoit by laying flowers on his monument.

V.S. Pustovoit is the founder of scientific farming in the Kuban. He started breeding winter and spring wheat, castor bean, developed and introduced the first varieties of these crops. Moreover, he is the author of varieties of winter rye and millet.

However, V.S. Pustovoit became famous worldwide due to his works on sunflower breeding to increase oil content of seeds. He developed an essentially new method of breeding of this crop, which allowed to increase oil content in seeds from 28-33% to 50-53%. As a result, sunflower has become an internationally recognized oil crop.

V.S. Pustovoit developed methods of sunflower breeding for resistance to dangerous parasitic plant - broomrape, as well as a system of improving seed production of sunflower varieties.

Under his guidance, new directions of sunflower research have been developed, which currently determine the breeding of this crop in the world: interspecific hybridization, production of inter-line hybrids.

He is the author of 42 sunflower varieties with high oil content, including the famous Peredovik, VNIIMK 6540, VNIIMK 8833 and others.

The international recognition of V.S. Pustovoit is the establishment of the V.S. Pustovoit Medal by the International Sunflower Association.