Varieties of fruit and berry crops that created michurin. © Inventions and inventors of Russia

Russian and Soviet biologist, founder of scientific breeding of fruit, berries and other crops in the USSR, honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1935), academician of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1935).

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born on October 15 (27), 1855 in the “Vershina” forest dacha near the village of Pronskoye of the Ryazan Province (now in) in the family of an impoverished small-town nobleman of a retired provincial secretary V. I. Michurin.

I. V. Michurin received his primary education at home and then at the Pronsk district school, devoting his free and vacation time to working in the garden. He graduated from college in June 1872. His father was preparing him at the gymnasium for admission to the Alexander Lyceum, but the sudden illness of his father and the sale of the estate for debts made their adjustments to these plans.

In 1872, I. V. Michurin entered the 1st Ryazan classical gymnasium, but in the same year he was expelled from it “for disrespect to the authorities”. Then he had to move to the county town of the Tambov province, in which he spent his whole life.

In 1872-1876, I. V. Michurin worked at the station of the Ryazan-Ural Railway. At first he was a commercial clerk of a commodity office, from 1874 he held the position of commodity cashier, and then one of the assistants to the head of the station. In 1876-1889, I. V. Michurin was a fitter of clocks and signaling devices at the railway section -.

Struggling with a constant lack of funds, I. V. Michurin opened a watch workshop in his city, with his apartment. He devoted his free time to creating new varieties of fruit and berry crops. In 1875, I. V. Michurin rented a plot of land (about 500 sq. M.), Where he began work on collecting plant collections and on developing new varieties of fruit and berry crops. In 1888, he bought a new plot on the outskirts of the city (about 13 hectares), where he transferred his plants and where he lived and worked until the end of his life. Since 1888, this area near the settlement became one of the first in breeding nurseries.

In 1906, the first scientific works of I. V. Michurin, devoted to the problems of breeding new fruit trees, were published. In 1912, the works of the breeder were awarded the Order of St. Anna of the 3rd degree, in 1913 with the sign “For Works on Agriculture” in memory of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov.

With the establishment of Soviet power in 1917, I. V. Michurin without delay declared his readiness to cooperate with the new administration. His work was appreciated and widely disseminated. The scientist participated in the agronomical work of the People's Commissariat, advised agricultural specialists on issues of breeding, drought control, raising yields, attended local agronomic meetings.

In 1920, he gave instructions to the People's Commissar of Agriculture S. P. Sereda about organizing the study of scientific works and practical achievements of I. V. Michurin. On behalf of September 11, 1922, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M. I. Kalinin visited the scientist. On November 20, 1923, the Sovnarkom of the RSFSR recognized the experienced nursery of I. V. Michurin as an institution of state importance. In 1928, on the basis of the Michurinsky nursery, the Selection and Genetic Station of fruit and berry crops was organized, which in 1934 was reorganized into the Central Michurin Genetic Laboratory.

The works of the scientist were awarded orders (1931) and the Red Banner of Labor (1926). When he lived in 1932, the city was renamed to. I. V. Michurin died on June 7, 1935 and was buried on the territory of the collection nursery of the I. Michurin Fruit and Vegetable Institute (now Michurinsky State Agrarian University).

I. Michurin has made a great contribution to the development of genetics, especially fruit and berry plants. He became one of the founders of the scientific selection of crops. He developed theoretical foundations and some practical techniques for remote hybridization. A talented experimenter, honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, full member of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, I. V. Michurin entered science as the creator of over 300 plant species.

Michurin Ivan Vladimirovich biography brief  the famous scientist, biologist, founder of the scientific selection of berry, fruit and other crops in the USSR is presented in this article.

Ivan Michurin brief biography

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a well-known scientist biologist, breeder was born on October 27, 1855 in the Ryazan province into the family of a provincial retired secretary, a petty nobleman.

First, Michurin studied at home, later he entered the Pronsk district school, which he graduated in 1872. In the same year he became a student of the 1st Ryazan Classical Gymnasium, however, for disrespect to the authorities he was excluded from it. Ivan Vladimirovich moved to the city of Kozlov, in the Tambov province.

In the new city, he got a job at the railway station, where he worked from 1872 to 1876. First, he served as a commercial clerk of the commodity office, later became a commodity cashier and assistant station manager.

In 1874 he married Petrushina Alexander, the daughter of a worker in a distillery. They married two children in marriage with her - Nikolay and Maria.

Experiencing a shortage of finances, Michurin opened a watch workshop in his apartment. In his spare time he was engaged in the creation of new types of fruit and berry crops. To this end, Ivan Vladimirovich in 1875 rents a plot of land in Kozlov and makes attempts to develop new varieties of berry and fruit crops, and also collects a collection of plants.

In 1888, Michurin acquired a new plot of land on the outskirts of the city, much more than the previous one - about 13 hectares, and, having transferred his plants there, he works on his plantation until the end of his life. From now on, his plot becomes the first breeding nursery in Russia.

Michurin became famous in 1906, when his first scientific works were published, which covered the problems of breeding varieties of fruit trees. For his work, the scientist received the Order of St. Anna III degree and the sign "For the works on agriculture."

With the advent of the Bolsheviks to power, he begins to cooperate with the new administration and participates in consultations on breeding, raising yields and drought control for agricultural specialists, and also attends agronomic meetings.

In 1923, the nursery Michurin became an institution of national importance. And in 1928 it was reorganized into the Breeding and Genetic Station of fruit and berry crops (since 1934, the Central Genetic Laboratory, named after Michurin).

Michurin Ivan Vladimirovich contribution to science

Ivan Vladimirovich made a huge contribution to the science of genetics, paying special attention to the research of berry and fruit plants. He is considered the founder of the scientific selection of crops. He developed the theory and practical techniques in the field of remote hybridization.

Michurin was an experimenter, an honorary member of the USSR AS, a full member of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He created more than 300 species of new plants.

For his achievements, he was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1931, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1932.

I.V. Michurin began his first experiments with fruit plants as a twenty-year-old youth (in 1875), renting a vacant lot in Kozlov with a small garden. The source of the means for life and scientific work was the watch workshop opened by him. In 1888, he acquired a small plot of land outside the city and, unable to transport his plants to hire a horse, he transferred them to a new place (seven kilometers away) on his shoulders and the shoulders of his family members. And it was already a feat! In addition, I. V. Michurin created a garden not for commercial activities - growing and selling old, well-known varieties, but for breeding new, improved ones. And this is an endless, exhausting work and an equally endless waste of money for the purchase of plants, books, inventory ... And the result? The result must be waited for years and believe, believe, believe ... Believe in the rightness and rightness of the business, believe in the correctness of the chosen path. But the cultivation of a variety is often delayed for dozens of years (for example, the winter Bere variety I. V. Michurin created a pear variety for 36 years), and sometimes there is not enough human life.

In 1900, I. V. Michurin moved with all his green pets - for the third and last time - to the valley of the Voronezh River, to a site more suitable for experiments. Now here is the V. Michurin Museum-Reserve, and next to it is a magnificent building and gardens of the Central Genetic Laboratory (CGL) created during the lifetime of the scientist, which has now been transformed into the All-Russian Research Institute of Genetics and Breeding of Fruit Plants (VNIIGiSPR) and bears the name I.V. Michurin.

I. Michurin fulfilled his plans in his youth. Our country has received more than 300 high-quality varieties of fruit and berry crops. But the matter is not in the number and variety of the varieties he received. In the end, now not much is being kept from them in the gardens and besides in limited quantities. According to the apple-tree, this is the Bellefle Chinese, Slavyanka, Pepin saffron, Chinese early gold, in a large number Bessemyanka Michurinskaya. Of pear varieties in the gardens of the Black Earth zone, Berezhnaya Michurina Berexia is preserved. The greatness of I. V. Michurin in the fact that even at the end of the XIX century, he foresightly determined the main direction of selection, armed scientists with strategy and tactics of its implementation, became the founder of scientific selection (and, by the way, not only fruit, but also other cultures). And its varieties became the forefathers of new, even more improved varieties (for example, Bellefle-Kitaika spawned 35 varieties, Pepin saffron - 30), which, of course, largely replaced their predecessors.

Portrait I.V. Michurin. Artist A.M. Gerasimov

But not immediately I. V. Michurin found the right ways in creating varieties. He did not have anyone to learn, he had to develop everything himself. There were many mistakes, disappointments, severe failures, but he persevered in his work. And this is a feat of a lifetime!

At the end of the 19th century, it was widely believed in Russia that the improvement of the varietal composition of middle belt gardens can be accomplished by mass transfer of high-quality southern varieties here and their gradual adaptation to the harsh local climate. Gardeners have lost many years and a lot of money on this useless business. And this mistake, by the way, is still being repeated by many of our compatriots.

At first, YV Michurin succumbed to the temptation of such acclimatization. And years of fruitless work will pass before the scientist, after analyzing the results of the experiments, concludes that the adaptability of old, already established varieties to new conditions is extremely limited, and it is impossible to acclimatize such varieties by simply transferring them with trees or grafts cuttings to a winter-hardy stock. It is quite different when sowing seeds. In this case, the impact of new conditions does not fall on seedlings - established varieties, but young seedlings, extremely plastic plants with a high degree of variability and adaptability. So the decisive conclusion was made: “acclimatization is achievable only when plants multiply by sowing seeds”. And by the way, many of you, dear gardeners, do just that now.

Indeed, the finest hour for breeders (and therefore for all of us, gardeners) was the discovery of I. V. Michurin that a really effective way of moving plants to the north is not sowing any seeds, but obtained from a purposeful selection of hardy parents and, therefore, truly insemination is possible "only by removing new varieties of plants from the seeds."

And how much in this way are enough winter-hardy varieties of southerners already created in our country! Only, for example, in the Moscow Region, sweet cherry, apricot and even quince varieties produce relatively well. Well, grapes are now cultivated, one might say, everywhere, and some varieties even practically and without shelter.

Meeting I. V. Michurin with students of the Moscow Agricultural Academy, 1924

In developing the doctrine of purposeful selection of parental pairs, I. V. Michurin made a fateful discovery: the prospects for breeding in distant hybridization — crossing plants of different species rather distant in kinship and area of ​​growth. Only due to the introduction of I. Michurin into the selection of these scientific developments, for example, has the gardening of Siberia and the Urals become possible. After all, interspecific hybridization has allowed us to get a fundamentally new type of apple tree suitable for these places - ranetki and semi-cultures (hybrids between wild-growing type of berry apple, or simply Siberian, and European varieties), an unprecedented type of pear-tree hybrids between local wild-growing type of pear, called simply in the people - Ussurika and European varieties. All local varieties of stone fruit crops - cherries, plums, apricots - are also interspecific hybrids. Interspecific hybridization saved the gooseberry from destruction by a spirotherek, returned a pear to the gardens of the middle band, and even in an improved form. Most of the varieties of honeysuckle, rowan, stone fruit crops that are common throughout our country are also interspecific hybrids. When I once congratulated the well-known breeder on raspberry Ivan Vasilyevich Kazakov with his wonderful varieties (and above all remontant), he said: "You know, they went somehow unexpectedly and immediately when I introduced interspecific hybridization." And I just had to smile and say: “As recommended by I. V. Michurin.”

House-Museum of I.V. Michurin

And remember, probably, growing in your gardens, the so-called man-made plants that never existed in nature: Russian plum or, otherwise, hybrid cherry plum (hybrids between cherry plum and various types of plum), yoshta (hybrid between currant and gooseberry), dredger (hybrid of strawberry and strawberry), tserapadusy - children of cherry and bird cherry. And this is not a complete list.

And also, probably, few people know that I. V. Michurin determined the selection and the therapeutic direction, urging the breeders to create new varieties to be guided by the need to take into account their curative qualities. He even once wrote that if he had an adamant age, he would have brought out the apple of health. That is why our garden is now becoming a supplier not only, as they say, “products for dessert, but also a saving pharmacy”.

I. V. Michurin was the first to discover almost all cultures for gardening, which are now called non-traditional - new and rare. Most of them he first experienced in his garden. He created the first varieties and determined for each crop a future place in the Russian garden. It is from his light hand that aronia and felted cherry, lemongrass and actinidia are growing in our gardens now, shepherdia and barberry are being urged to go to the garden, varietal rowan, turn, bird cherry, hazel appeared.

Monument I.V. Michurin,
city ​​of Michurinsk

I. V. Michurin was a great connoisseur of plants. In his garden, he collected such a collection that the Americans tried to buy it twice (in 1911 and 1913) - together with the earth and the scientist themselves to ship across the ocean on a steamer. But I. V. Michurin was firm in his refusal. His plants can only live on Russian soil, his business is for Russia.

Most of his life I. V. Michurin fought alone. The years went by, the strength was exhausted, it became harder and harder for him to work in the garden. A joyless, lonely old age and need approached. And, most likely, the work on the transformation of Russian gardening would have been interrupted if I. V. Michurin had not been supported by the Soviet authorities. On February 18, 1922, a telegram arrived in Tambov: “The experiments to obtain new cultivated plants have enormous state significance. Urgently send a report on the experiences and works of Michurin Kozlovsky District to the report to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Comrade. Lenin. Confirm the execution of the telegram. "

The grave of I. V. Michurin

There was an unprecedented case in the history - the work of one person became the business of the whole country. Across the whole immense country, scientific centers for gardening, breeding, sorting out research were created - institutes, experimental stations, strong points. At the same time, training centers for training personnel were organized - from institutes and technical schools to courses for training garden workers. Already in the early 1930s, the first students of I. V. Michurin traveled throughout the country and in the most varied climatic zones — in the mountains, in the desert, in the steppes, and among the forests — they began to create new varieties. And they, together with I. V. Michurin, created the basis by which our country has no equal for variety and variety of new garden crops. And then this work will be continued by the second and third generation of followers of I. V. Michurin. Thus, the Great Gene Pool of Fruit and Berry Crops of Russia will be created.

Unfortunately, this invaluable legacy in the last 20 years has been largely lost and, due to the commercialization of gardening, has been criminally replaced by foreign, as a hundred years ago wrote I. Michurin, a material unsuitable for our conditions. The scientific work was also curtailed, many collections died under the construction of cottage settlements. The remaining gardens are old, many are neglected. Unfortunately, dear gardeners, not much better at your sites. And yet, according to my observations, you are now - the main holders of our fruit and berry gene pool. Take care and increase this is our great national treasure! And further. Read Ivan Vladimirovich. His books can still be bought from booksellers, ordered online. They are written very clearly, without clutter of scientific terms, and in content - a storehouse of ageless knowledge for amateur gardeners and for specialists.

I.S. Isaeva at the desktop I. V. Michurin.
House-Museum of I. V. Michurin

Keeper of the House-Museum of I. V. Michurin in Michurinsk L. Volokitina

Irina Sergeevna Isaeva,
doctor of agricultural sciences
photos by I.S. Isaeva and from the book N. I. Saveliev
  "All-Russiangenetics Research Institute
  and breedingfruit plants to them. I.V. Michurin "

Rare historical photos created by personal
  a photographerI.V. Michurina V.A. Ivanov.
  Published in the book N.I. Savelyev
  "All-Russian Research Institute
  genetics and selection of fruit plants to them. I.V. Michurin ".

Use of photos is permitted by I.S. Isaeva
  author of the book, director of the institute, academician N. I. Saveliev

I. V. Michurin with the famous Russian botanist, academician B. Keller

I. V. Michurin and American Professor
N. Ganzen

I. V. Michurin with Academician N. I. Vavilov

I. V. Michurin for conducting cytological studies

I. V. Michurin with a delegation from Mongolia (early 30s)

(1855-1935) russian biologist and breeder

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born in the village of Dolgoe, Pronsk district, Ryazan province, and spent most of his life in Kozlov, the county town of the Tambov province.

His parents were impoverished nobles, who had a small plot of land, and all the efforts of the family were directed to feed themselves. From early childhood, Ivan Michurin enjoyed working in the garden.

After graduating from the parish school, the future scientist entered the Pronsk district school. He finished it with a certificate of merit and was admitted to the Ryazan gymnasium for a "state-owned debris". However, he studied there for only two years. He had to leave school due to illness, and also because the authorities refused to grant him subsidies. At this time, his father was completely ruined, and he was unable to pay for his son's education.

To feed himself, Michurin got a job as a mechanic at a railway telegraph, but he still spent all his free time in the garden.

Ivan Michurin's research work began in a tiny front garden near their home. On such a piece of land he could plant only a few fruit trees. Only in 1895 did he manage to buy from the Slobodsky priest a piece of waste land on the bank of the Lesnoy Voronezh river. There he began to put his experiences.

On his piece of land, Michurin sows with his own hands, plant, slides, and conducts extensive experimental research; he achieves rapid rooting of cuttings, tests a different composition for smearing cuts.

Russian gardeners of that time were fond of plant acclimatization — apples and other fruit crops from warm countries of Western Europe were relocated to our harsh lands. But Ivan Michurin was convinced from his own experience that it was a waste of time: if cherished varieties had yielded tasty fruits in the first years, then in the end all the same they degenerated. It was impossible to create newcomers the necessary climatic conditions for their full development, under the influence of which these varieties were created. It is impossible to mechanically transfer a plant from one climate to another. At the same time, Ivan Michurin found that plants at a young age are easier to change the external environment. Therefore, a new plant as a future variety from its inception should grow and develop in those conditions in which it will have to live for many years. Michurin finds zoning varieties.

But in order for new, acquired properties to be transmitted to offspring, it was necessary to overcome the old heredity, or, as Michurin said, “shatter the heredity”. And according to the scientist, it was possible to do this through a coherent system of the selection process, which combines three main links: hybridization, the impact of environmental conditions on developing hybrids and selection.

Having placed hybridization in the center of his breeding system, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin paid special attention to the selection of parental pairs. He argued that if you cross geographically distant plants and raise their offspring in conditions alien to both parents, none of the qualities of the parents will prevail. In the hybrid will form new properties and qualities. That is how Michurin created his wonderful winter variety of pear. Bere winter Michurin. The flowers are very frost-resistant Ussuri pear growing in the Far East, he pollinated with Bereroyal pollen grown in Western Europe. From the Ussuri pear hybrid obtained frost resistance, and from Bereroyal - excellent fruit taste and ability to persist for a long time.

Using hybridization, Ivan Michurin considered it necessary to “cultivate” a new variety, that is, to influence him in one way or another, forcing him to change some qualities and acquire others.

Strong influence on the emerging hybrid plant has a special vaccination, called Michurin method of the mentor, or educator. The essence of the method was that the hybrid seedling was grafted by grafting with varieties that had the desired qualities. As a result, the seedling develops at the expense of plastic substances produced by the rearing plant, i.e. the mentor. Ivan Michurin has developed special methods for overcoming insecticide in plants with distant hybridization. These methods include the pre-vegetative approach method, the mediator method and the pollination method with a pollen mixture.

His hybridization methods became classical and were the beginning of the movement of many southern cultures to the north.

But the discovery of these methods and their justification required a truly selfless labor from a scientist.

After the victory of the October Revolution, Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was created the necessary conditions for large-scale and fruitful scientific work. This allowed the great biologist to expand experimental studies many times. Later in the city of Kozlov on the basis of his nursery, which occupied nine acres, the All-Union Center for Scientific and Industrial Horticulture and Plant Growing was organized. A city Kozlov renamed Michurinsk.

The significance of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin in the history of plant breeding is quite large: despite the limited nature of individual conclusions, his vast experience in caring for plants is important for modern researchers and especially for amateur gardeners.

short biography

Ivan Vladimirovich was born on October 28, 1855 in the estate Top of the Ryazan region. His love of gardening came from ancestors who enthusiastically collected fruit trees and a library of agricultural literature. The father of the future scientist, Vladimir Ivanovich, served at the Tula Arms Plant as a recipient of weapons, and, having retired, was actively engaged in gardening and beekeeping. It is noteworthy that in the winter and autumn (when the growing season came to an end), he taught peasant children to read and write in his house. Ivan Vladimirovich was the seventh child in the family, however, his brothers and sisters died in infancy, and mother Maria Petrovna left behind them when the boy was four years old. The father gave his son his love and attention, was engaged with him. As a result of this, already at the age of eight, the future scientist could perfectly make budding, copulating, and planting plants.

Ivan received his initial education at home, then he was sent to the Pronsk district school of the Ryazan province. Immediately after his graduation in 1972, his father became seriously ill, and the family estate went under the hammer for debt. The uncle of the scientist gave him a job at the Ryazan Provincial Gymnasium, but from there the young man was expelled that same year because of a difficult financial situation.

At the same time, the young man moved to live in the district town of Kozlov, where he found work as a commercial office clerk at the freight station of Kozlov station. He was promoted to assistant station head, but lost this place due to a conflict with the station head.

In 1874, Ivan Vladimirovich married Alexandra Vasilyevna Petrushina, who bore him a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Maria. In addition to gardening, the future scientist gained fame as an excellent watchmaker. Needing funds, he opened a watch workshop at his apartment, where he “brought back to life” not only watches, but also various devices. Ivan Vladimirovich could literally determine from the sound what this or that mechanism was “sick” with.

In the rare hours of free time, he created new varieties of fruit and berry crops. In 1875, Michurin rented a vacant urban estate in the vicinity of Kozlov, where he began to conduct experiments on plant breeding. Later, they acquired a plot near the suburb Turmasovo, which became one of the first breeding nurseries in Russia. Began an active scientific work. Already in 1906, the first works of I. V. Michurin appeared on the problems of breeding new varieties of fruit trees. And in 1912, for his work, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne of the 3rd degree. The fame of a scientist thundered not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders. The fact that in 1913 Ivan Vladimirovich refused the offer of the US Department of Agriculture to move to America, or at least sell his collection of plants, speaks for itself. He motivated his decision with the famous phrase: “Adult plants take a bad root in another place, and people even more so.” In addition, the Dutch offered I.Michurin large sums of money for violet lily bulbs with the condition that this flower would no longer be grown in Russia. The great scientist refused them, although he himself lived in poverty. Gardener until the end of his days remained a true patriot of his homeland.

The contribution of the great scientist to science is truly priceless. Repeatedly he was awarded high awards. For outstanding work and achievements in the field of genetics and plant breeding in 1926, Michurin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and in 1931 the Order of Lenin. In 1932, Kozlov was renamed in honor of his famous resident. A year before the death of Ivan Vladimirovich, in 1934 a genetic laboratory was established on the basis of his nursery.