The article presents the results of expeditionary survey of the territories of the Tunka Valley and Predbaikalia. The expedition, organized by the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources, collected samples of wild relatives of perennial cereal and leguminous fodder plants: chickweed, spikegrass, wheatgrass, timothy, bromegrass, fescue and bluegrass species, meadow, creeping and lupine clover species, and species of bentgrass. The collected samples of wild herbs will be transferred to the VIR collection for long-term study at the nurseries of the Institute with subsequent transfer of the selected productive samples to the catalog of especially valuable samples of the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources and to breeding institutions of the Russian Federation, including South Siberia and the Far East. We identified sources of economically valuable traits among the collected samples of fodder crops: winter hardiness, yield of green mass, hay, seeds, early maturity, resistance to diseases, etc. The expansion of the range of fodder crops is recommended for fodder production and improvement of pasture agrophytocenosis in the conditions of the Tunka Valley and Predbaikalia. It is recommended to expand the range of fodder crops for fodder production and improvement of pasture agrophytocenoses in the conditions of the Tunka Valley and Predbaikalia
Keywords
Forage production, wild relatives of forage plants, VIR collection, perennial leguminous forage crops, clover, milkvetch, perennial forage cereals