PLANT RESEARCH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 106, 29 January 1938, Page 12

PLANT RESEARCH

Valuable Work Done By Russians HORTICULTURAL LECTURE Some of the vast amount of plant research work carried out in recent times was described by Dr. O. H. Frankel in a lecture to horticulturists at Christchurch. Dr. Frankel is a geneticist at the Wheat Research Institute, and his lecture was given under tlie auspices of the New Zealand Institute of Horticulture. Dr. Frankel described the great plant research work undertaken 15 years ago by the Russian Institute of Plant Industry, a huge research organisation which sent out investigators into many parts of the world to study the geographical distribution of plants. More than 300,000 specimens were obtained and studied and grown at the research stations operated by the institute in Russia. This research established that there were geographical centres of origin for plants. Every one of these centres was in a mountainous region or in the sub-tropical and tropical zones, and it was found that a vast number of plants’ and not only cultivated plants, had their centre of origin in the same region. ( Only seven such regions had been established. They were south-w’estern Asia, India, Eastern China, Abyssinia, Mediterranean countries. Southern Mexico and Central America, and Peru and Bolivia. He explained how various plants had been found to have their origins in certain of these zones. Potatoes, for instance, had their origin in Peru and Bolivia, and so did tomatoes. Soft wheats, rye, lucerne, and many legumes and fruit trees had their origins in south-western Asia. First Potato Imports. The most spectacular results were achieved with potatoes. The first two imports from South America occurred in the sixteenth century. One went to Spain, the other, presumably brought by Sir Francis Drake, from Chile, to England. The story of Sir Walter Raleigh’s importation from Virginia was almost certainly a myth. No further imports < beyond these were made for 300 years, and one scientist believed that the characters of all our varieties may have derived from these first two imports. The Russian investigators who went to South America brought back an amazing variety of forms of the potato, with an infinite variety of qualities. Taking tlie principle of evolution as accepted, Dr. Frankel examined the sources of natural variations in plants, discussing tlie various theories held bv scientists. A tremendous scope had been opened up by recent research. World collections of (Cultivated plants were now being established, facilitating the use of hitherto unknown forms and characters. The practical potentialities of plant research were enormous, and the plant breeder in the future would play a highly-important role.