1912 - Vasilii Stepanovich Pustovoit and his Sunflowers

I think I first twigged to Pustovoit when I encountered this mention of him.  Or maybe not...whatever the case, he certainly impacted the world of agriculture! A prestigious award now keeps his memory alive.

V.S. Pustovoit Award

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Vasilii Stepanovich Pustovoit

"The V.S. Pustovoit Award is the highest honour conferred to individuals working in the Sunflower Industry. To fully appreciate the significance of the Award, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the man after whom the Award was named.

2016 Award Winner,
Dr. Tatiana Sergeevna Antonova 

In 1912, V.S. Pustovoit began his research work on fields crops in the Kuban region. Pustovoit was an outstanding breeder, a Lenin and State Prize winner, and a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

He worked out the technique of multiple individual selection from strains and intervarietal hybrids assessed for their offspring quality, with the subsequent induced and regulated transpollination of the best numbers.

In 1924, Krasnodar became the experimental selection centre for Russian oilseeds and in 1932 the V.S. Pustovoit All Union Research Institute was established to formalize the valuable work Pustovoit had done in the preceding years.

V. S. Pustovoit headed the Breeding Department of the Institute until his death in 1972."

http://isasunflower.org/presentation/pustovoit-awards.html

http://www.childrenpedia.org/6/page411.html

 

A bit more background: 

In 1912, Pustovoit organized the Kruglik Plant Breeding and Experiment Station (since 1932 the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Oil Crops) at the Kuban Agricultural School.   From 1935 to 1972 he headed the department of selective breeding and seed-raising of oil crops and the laboratory of sunflower breeding at the All-UnionScientific Research Institute of Oil Crops.

Pustovoit was one of the first to breed sunflowers with high oil content. He worked out highly effective systems for the improved raising of sunflower seeds. He developed 20 broom-rape-resistant sunflower varieties with a high oil content (up to 57 percent in dry seeds). These varieties include Peredovik VNIIMK 8883, VNIIMK 6540, and Smena.

In 1974, varieties bred by Pustovoit occupied more than half the varietal sunflower plantings in the USSR; in foreign countries about 1 million hectares have been planted with varieties developed by Pustovoit.

V. F. BARANOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). 

© 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved

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Mammoth Russian, Diane's Strain

In 1882 the Iowa State Horticultural Society had something to say about the Mammoth Russian.

THE RUSSIAN SUNFLOWER 

THE CHEAPEST AND BEST FEED FOR CHICKENS.

The Mammoth Russian sunflower is the largest, best, and most productive variety. A flower exhibited at the Centennial measured twenty-two inches in diameter.  

The seed is valuable for stock-feeding; it is the best egg-producing food known for poultry, keeping them in fine condition, and largely increasing the production of eggs. The Poultry World says this plant should be grown by every breeder in the country who has opportunity to raise only a few stalks even; for its properties of glossing the plumage of exhibition birds are remarkable. 

It can be sown any time up to the middle of July. The leaves and stalk, when green, furnish capital fodder for horses and cows. It may be planted where other fruit and vegetables cannot be conveniently raised, along the sides of fences or anywhere where the soil is not easily cultivated. These flowers are double the average dimensions of the South American variety, and as a bearer it far excels the latter. 

I raised heads of Mammoth Russian sunflowers larger over than a common water pail, and very heavy, and full of large seeds, and valuable for poultry. The stalks when dry in winter make good kindling wood. The sunflower possesses anti-malarial properties of much value, and may be made very useful by liberal planting around houses located in malarial sections. Mark out the ground as for corn, and plant several seeds in each hill, and when the plant gets about three inches high thin out. The cut-worms will eat them down sometimes. Three quarts of seed is sufficient for an acre. 

—Mary J. Coomber, in Iowa Homestead, Transactions, Volume 16

Did you notice the reference to malaria?  I had to follow up on that.  The next post will follow that interesting claim until I find out what Mary is talking about!