THE FORMATION OF PLUM ASSORTMENT IN BURYATIA
Plum has started to be spread in home gardens in the 1940s. Amateur gardeners brought Ussurian plum seedlings and sprouts from other Russian regions. Purposeful plum selective breeding work and variety study has been conducted since 1951. Synthetic and analytical selection methods are used in the selective breeding work. More than 20 thousand seedlings of free pollination Ussurian plum and best alien varieties were planted in selection gardens. According to study results, 10 best forms were chosen as elite. This paper presents the results of collection variety study of 20 varieties and hybrids developed by the institutions from Altai, the Urals, Far East and Buryatia. Plum varieties and hybrids go through the basic phenological phases of growth and development over the growing season, and that confirm their adaptability in the conditions of Buryatia. Over the years of study, the general frosting level of plum varieties did not exceed 2.0 points. The yielding capacity of the intergeneric hybrids of the Altai selection was as following: Chernaya srednerannyaya - 10.3 tons per ha; (G-15-68) - 10.8 tons per ha; which was more than control by 37% and 44%. The following varieties have bigger fruits and more harmonized taste: G-15-68, Chernaya srednerannyaya, Baykalskaya, Vaulinskaya, Khabarovskaya rannyaya, the seedling of Manzhurskaya krasavitsa-10A, Sopernitsa Yubileinoy. Chernaya srednerannyaya, G-15-68, Sopernitsa Yubileinoi, and the varieties of Altai selection are promising and recommended for further study. At present, 7 plum varieties of Buryat selection successfully passed the state variety testing and were releases for Eastern Siberia; 3 of them were patented. The advantages of these varieties are their winter hardiness, longevity, and annual yielding capacity.