Ivan Michurin short biography. Methods of selection work by I. Michurina Amazing forms of plants bred by I.V.

Michurin plant breeding

I.V. Michurin is an outstanding scientist-breeder, one of the founders of the science of breeding fruit crops. He lived and worked in the county town of Kozlov (Tambov province), renamed in 1932 to Michurinsk. Working in the garden from a young age was his favorite thing. He set the goal of his life to enrich the gardens of Russia with new varieties and achieved this dream, despite incredible difficulties and hardships. He developed original practical methods for obtaining hybrids with new properties useful for humans, and also made very important theoretical conclusions. Having set himself the task of promoting southern varieties of fruit trees to central Russia, Michurin first tried to solve it by acclimatizing these varieties in new conditions. But the southern varieties grown by him froze out in winter. A mere change in the conditions of existence of an organism cannot change a phylogenetically developed stable genotype, moreover, in a certain direction. Convinced of the unsuitability of the acclimatization method, Michurin devoted his life to breeding work, in which he used three main types of influence on the nature of a plant: hybridization, the upbringing of a developing hybrid in various conditions, and selection. Hybridization, i.e., obtaining a variety with new, improved characteristics, was most often carried out by crossing a local variety with a southern one, which had higher palatability. At the same time, a negative phenomenon was observed - the dominance of the features of the local variety in the hybrid. The reason for this was the historical adaptation of the local variety to certain conditions of existence. One of the main conditions contributing to the success of hybridization, Michurin considered the selection of parental pairs. In some cases, he took for crossing parents who were distant in their geographical habitat. If for parental forms the conditions of existence do not correspond to their usual ones, he reasoned, then the hybrids derived from them will be able to more easily adapt to new factors, since there will be no one-sided dominance. Then the breeder will be able to control the development of a hybrid that adapts to new conditions.

By this method, the Bere winter Michurina pear variety was bred. As a mother, the Ussuri wild pear was taken, which is distinguished by small fruits, but winter-hardy, as a father, the southern variety Bere royale with large juicy fruits was taken. For both parents, the conditions of central Russia were unusual. The hybrid showed the qualities of the parents that the breeder needed: the fruits were large, long-lived, had high palatability, and the hybrid plant itself endured cold up to - 36 °.

In other cases, Michurin selected local frost-resistant varieties and crossed them with southern heat-loving, but with other excellent qualities. Michurin brought up carefully selected hybrids in Spartan conditions, believing that otherwise they would have traits of thermophilicity. Thus, the Slavyanka apple variety was obtained from crossing Antonovka with the southern variety Ranet pineapple. In addition to crossing two forms belonging to the same systematic category (apple trees with apple trees, pears with pears), Michurin also used hybridization of distant forms: he received interspecific and intergeneric hybrids. He obtained hybrids between cherry and bird cherry (cerapadus), between apricot and plum, plum and blackthorn, mountain ash and Siberian hawthorn, etc.

Under natural conditions, alien pollen of another species is not perceived by the mother plant and crossing does not occur. To overcome non-crossing in distant hybridization, Michurin used several methods.

Method of preliminary vegetative approach

One-year-old stalk of a hybrid rowan seedling (graft) is grafted into the crown of a plant of another species or genus, for example, to a pear (rootstock). After 5-6 years of nutrition due to the substances produced by the stock, there is some change, the convergence of the physiological and biochemical properties of the scion.

During the flowering of mountain ash, its flowers are pollinated with pollen from the rootstock. This is where the crossover takes place.

Mediator Method

It was used by Michurin in the hybridization of cultivated peach with wild Mongolian almond bean (in order to move the peach to the north). Since direct crossing of these forms was not possible, Michurin crossed the beaver with the semi-cultivated peach David. Their hybrid crossed with a cultivated peach, for which he was called an intermediary.

Pollination method with a mixture of pollen

I. V. Michurin used various variants of the pollen mixture. A small amount of pollen from the mother plant was mixed with pollen from the father. In this case, its own pollen irritated the stigma of the pistil, which became capable of accepting foreign pollen. When pollinating apple flowers with pear pollen, a little apple pollen was added to the latter. Part of the ovules was fertilized by its own pollen, the other part - by someone else's (pear). Non-crossing was also overcome when the flowers of the mother plant were pollinated with a mixture of pollen from different species without the addition of pollen of their own variety.

Essential oils and other secretions secreted by foreign pollen irritated the stigma of the mother plant and contributed to its perception.

Throughout his many years of work on breeding new varieties of plants, I. V. Michurin showed the importance of the subsequent education of young hybrids after crossing.

When raising a developing hybrid, Michurin paid attention to the composition of the soil, the method of storing hybrid seeds, frequent replanting, the nature and degree of nutrition of seedlings, and other factors.

The mentor method

In addition, Michurin widely used the mentor method he developed. In order to cultivate desirable qualities in a hybrid seedling, the seedling is grafted onto a plant that possesses these qualities. Further development of the hybrid is under the influence of substances produced by the parent plant (mentor); the desired qualities are enhanced in the hybrid. In this case, in the process of development of hybrids, a change in the properties of dominance occurs. Both a rootstock and a scion can be a mentor. In this way, Michurin bred two varieties - Kandil-Chinese and Bellefleur-Chinese.

Kandil-Chinese is the result of crossing Kitaika with the Crimean variety Kandil-Sinap. At first, the hybrid began to deviate towards the southern parent, which could develop insufficient cold resistance in it. In order to develop and consolidate the sign of frost resistance, Michurin grafted a hybrid into the crown of Kitayka's mother, who possessed these qualities. Nutrition mainly with its substances brought up the desired quality in the hybrid. The breeding of the second grade Bellefleur-Chinese was associated with some deviation of the hybrid towards the frost-resistant and early ripe Kitayka. The fruits of the hybrid could not withstand long storage.

In order to cultivate the keeping quality property in the hybrid, Michurin planted several cuttings of late-ripening varieties into the crown of the Bellefleur-Chinese hybrid seedling. The result turned out to be good - the fruits of Chinese Bellefleur acquired the desired qualities - late ripeness and keeping quality. The mentor method is convenient in that its action can be regulated by the following methods: 1) the ratio of the age of the mentor and the hybrid; 2) the duration of the mentor; 3) the quantitative ratio of the leaves of the mentor and the hybrid.

For example, the intensity of the mentor's action will be the higher, the older his age, the richer the crown foliage and the longer he acts. In selection work, Michurin attached significant importance to selection, which was carried out repeatedly and very rigorously. Hybrid seeds were selected according to their size and roundness: hybrids - according to the configuration and thickness of the leaf blade and petiole, the shape of the shoot, the location of the lateral buds, according to winter hardiness and resistance to fungal diseases, pests and many other traits, and, finally, according to the quality of the fruit.

The results of IV Michurin's work are striking. He created hundreds of new varieties of plants. A number of varieties of apple trees and berry crops are advanced far to the north. They have high palatability and at the same time are perfectly adapted to local conditions. The new variety Antonovka 600 grams yields up to 350 kg per tree. Michurin grapes withstood the winter without powdering the vines, which is done even in the Crimea, and at the same time did not reduce their commodity indicators. Michurin showed with his works that the creative possibilities of a person are endless.

(1855-1935) Russian biologist and breeder

Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born in the village of Dolgoe, Pronsky district, Ryazan province, and lived almost all his life in Kozlov, a district 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 aimed at feeding 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 commendable list and was admitted to the Ryazan gymnasium on a "state kosht". However, he studied there for only two years. He had to leave his studies due to illness, and also due to the fact that the authorities refused 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 the 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 house. On such a piece of land, he could only plant a few fruit trees. Only in 1895 did he manage to buy a piece of junk land on the banks of the Lesnoy Voronezh river from the Sloboda priest. There he began to put his experiments.

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

Russian gardeners of that time were fond of plant acclimatization - they moved apple trees and other fruit crops from the warm countries of Western Europe to our harsh lands. But Ivan Michurin was convinced from his own experience that this was a waste of time: pampered varieties, if they gave a harvest of tasty fruits in the first years, eventually degenerated anyway. It was impossible to create for the newcomers the climatic conditions necessary 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 it is easier for plants to change the external environment at a young age. Therefore, a new plant as a future variety from the moment of its inception must grow and develop in the conditions in which it will have to live for many years. Michurin comes to the conclusion about the regionalization of varieties.

But in order for the new, acquired properties to be passed on to offspring, it was necessary to overcome the old heredity, or, as Michurin said, "shake heredity." And to do this, according to the scientist, it was possible 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 at 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 grow their offspring in conditions alien to both parents, none of the qualities of the parents will prevail. New properties and qualities will be formed in the hybrid. That is how Michurin created his wonderful winter pear variety Bere winter Michurina. The flowers of a very frost-resistant Ussuri pear growing in the Far East, he pollinated with pollen from the Bereroyal variety, bred in Western Europe. From the Ussuri pear, the hybrid received frost resistance, and from Bereroyal - an excellent taste of fruits and the ability to persist for a long time.

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

A special grafting, called by Michurin the mentor method, or educator, has a strong influence on the emerging hybrid plant. The essence of the method was that the hybrid seedling, by means of grafting, spliced ​​with such varieties that possessed the desired qualities. As a result, the seedling develops at the expense of plastic substances produced by the parent plant, i.e., the mentor. Ivan Michurin developed special methods for overcoming non-crossing in plants with distant hybridization. These methods include the method of preliminary vegetative approach, the mediator method and the method of pollination with a mixture of pollen.

His methods of hybridization became classic and were the beginning of the northward movement of many southern cultures.

But the discovery of these methods and their substantiation demanded truly selfless work from the scientist.

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

The significance of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin in the history of selection 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.

The name of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a great nature changer, an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a full member of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, in Soviet times awarded the Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and Lenin, became known to the whole world after the winged words he wrote: “We cannot expect favors from nature; to take them from her is our task.” Today, few people know that this phrase had a continuation: “But nature must be treated with respect and care, and, if possible, preserved in its original form,” which significantly changed its meaning.

In the Ryazan province, among the dense forests, near the ancient Russian town of Pronsk, along the Prony River, there was a group of villages: Alabino, Birkinovka Dolgoe-Michurovka, Yumashevo. In the middle of the 19th century, they housed tiny estates of small landed noblemen, the Michurins. Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was born on October 28 (15), 1855 in the village of Dolgoe (now Michurovka), at the Vershina forest dacha.

His great-grandfather - Ivan Naumovich and grandfather - Ivan Ivanovich served in the military field. Ivan Naumovich had several wounds, participated in many campaigns, including the Suvorov crossing through the Saint Gotthard Pass. In 1812, a veteran volunteered to join the militia and was wounded in the head. Finished the war with his son - Major Ivan Ivanovich Michurin in Paris. After retiring, he settled in the Kaluga province, where he was engaged in gardening and brought out several varieties of pears.

Grandfather - Ivan Ivanovich - repeatedly showed courage in battles, for which he received several awards. In 1822, he retired and until the end of his life, too, was engaged in gardening.
Michurin's father, Vladimir Ivanovich, served for some time at the Tula Arms Plant as a receiver of weapons for deliveries to the army. Having married a petty-bourgeois girl, he retired and settled in the Vershina estate, which he got under the division between brothers and sisters.

Vladimir Ivanovich was an authoritative person in the district. He subscribed to the works of the Free Economic Society, received from it seeds of the best varieties for the garden, and conducted experiments with fruit and ornamental plants. In winter, he taught literacy to peasant children at home.

The future biologist Ivan Vladimirovich was the seventh child in the family. All of his brothers and sisters died in early childhood. And when the boy was four years old, his mother, Maria Petrovna, died of cancer.

The ability to see in wildlife what is hidden from a simple observer manifested itself in Vanya Michurin from early childhood. At the age of three, he seriously embarrassed his father and mother (avid gardeners, vegetable growers, flower growers), wishing to take part in the sowing of seeds. He was refused, then he took his hand into the basket. He was pushed back. Vanya began to run around the beds - as a result, he received several slaps. After crying, the little boy fell silent, then cheered up and started off at full speed towards the house. A minute later he returned with a salt shaker in his hand and began to sow salt in the garden. The parents watched the little figure in amazement and, embarrassed in front of each other, rushed to their son with permission. His father first taught him at home, and then sent him to the Pronsk district school. Coming home for the holidays, the boy adopted his father's gardening experience.

In June 1872, Ivan Michurin graduated from college, after which his father began to prepare his son at the gymnasium course for admission to the lyceum. All hopes for admission to the elite Alexander Lyceum Michurins pinned on their beloved aunt Tatyana Ivanovna Birkina-Michurina. Her husband (nephew's cousin) Sergey Gavrilovich Birkin was an inspector of this St. Petersburg educational institution for a long time.

But the plans of the Michurins were not destined to come true. Suddenly, Vanya's father went crazy and was sent to a Ryazan insane asylum. The estate turned out to be mortgaged and was sold for debts. An aunt took patronage over her nephew, Vanya Michurin.

In 1865, during the construction of the Ryazan-Kozlovskaya railway, Kozlov station began to be equipped. There is evidence that his uncle, Lev Ivanovich Michurin - the chairman of the Pronsk district zemstvo council - in 1872, when opening a commodity office, provided his nephew with a letter of recommendation. And the 17-year-old young man was hired as a commercial clerk in the commodity office of the Kozlov station (later - the Michurinsk station of the Moscow-Ryazan railway) with a salary of 12 rubles a month and a 16-hour working day. Soon he settled in a room in the railway settlement Yamskaya.

In 1874, Michurin took the position of a commodity cashier, and then one of the assistants to the head of the same station. According to Bakharev's biographer, Michurin lost his position as assistant station chief due to a conflict ("caustic mockery") with station chief Everling. In the same year, Ivan Vladimirovich married Alexandra Petrushina, the daughter of a distillery worker. He confirmed the fact of his marriage to a bourgeois woman in 1878, responding to a request from the Department of Agriculture: “I was married on August 28, 1874 to a bourgeois woman in the city of Kozlov, Alexandra Vasilyev Petrushina, born in 1858, I have two children from this marriage: son Nikolai, born in 1876 and daughter Maria, born in 1877.

Renting an apartment in the city and lacking funds, Michurin opened a repair shop in one of the rooms. After duty, he often worked long after midnight, fixing watches, sewing machines and various appliances. The news of the talented mechanic quickly spread throughout the city, and the number of orders increased. Persistence and ability to quickly grasp the intricacies of mechanics helped him get a new position. From 1876 to 1889, Michurin was a fitter of clocks and signaling devices on the Kozlov-Lebedyan railway section with a decent salary of 360 rubles a year.

In the winter of 1881, the head of the Kozlov railway depot, Engineer Ground, suggested to Michurin that electric lighting be installed at the Kozlov station. The complexity of the task was that the electricity must come from its own power plant, which Michurin had to design. Having practical experience and natural ingenuity, Michurin brilliantly completed the task.

At the same time, Ivan Vladimirovich, having rented a piece of land, continued to work in the garden.

You should quit, mister mechanic, tinkering with your garden, ”Graund once told him. - You are a ready-made first-class electrical engineer.

Indeed, railroad workers were considered intellectuals, enjoyed respect in society and had great career opportunities. The nobleman Michurin served on the railway for twelve years, but the craving for selection and breeding of new varieties, for the land, laid down by his ancestors, overpowered him, and he left the service.

On the leased land, in a short time, he created a collection of fruit and berry plants in more than 600 species. Further experiments on plant breeding were suspended due to the lack of available land.

In the fall, Michurin moved to the Lebedev estate, where there was a garden next to the house on Moskovskaya Street. Two years later, he took a loan from the bank, bought the estate and immediately mortgaged it for 18 years. Here Ivan Vladimirovich transferred the entire collection from the Lebedev estate.

After several years of work, the first varieties appeared: raspberry "commerce", cherry "griot pear-shaped", "small-leaved semi-dwarf", "fertile" and interspecific hybrid cherry variety "beauty of the north". By 1887, the question of land again becomes before the gardener.

In early autumn, Michurin buys from the priest Yastrebov, seven kilometers from the city, near the settlement of Turmasovo, a forest area on the river bank with an area of ​​​​about 13-15 hectares. The site was divided into two parts: one half, intended for the garden, was convenient, the second, located under the cliff of the river, was rocky, with thickets of wild shrubs, was of little use. The deal closed on May 26, 1888. It can be argued that all the money raised went to buy the estate, as the neighbors saw how the Michurin family dragged the collection from the city and lived in a hut for two years. Freed from work at the station, the young scientist-practitioner is engaged in breeding new high-yielding varieties.

In 1893-1896, when the nursery in Turmasovo already had thousands of hybrid seedlings of plums, cherries, apricots and grapes, severe winters killed most of the varietal seedlings. From misfortune, Michurin concluded that the method of acclimatization by grafting on "fat" land is good only in warm countries. In Russia, especially in areas of risky farming, hybrids lose their resistance to frost and die.

In 1900, Michurin began to grow frost-resistant varieties, for which he transferred seedlings to a plot with poor soils, selecting lower (dwarf) trees for planting. And in 1906, Ivan Vladimirovich began to work closely with the all-Russian journal "Bulletin of Horticulture, Fruit Growing and Horticulture", in which his first scientific works appeared on the problems of breeding new varieties of fruit trees.
In the biography of Michurin, published in the Soviet period, the statement runs like a red thread: the great gardener in tsarist times suffocated from poverty and indifference of tsarist officials and was appreciated only during the years of Soviet power. In reality, it wasn't quite like that.

The printing of numerous articles, distribution of seeds, complete and comprehensive recommendations of Ivan Vladimirovich on growing new varieties of fruit and berry crops aroused great interest of gardeners around the world in the scientist. In addition to numerous requests from Russian colleagues, international specialists began to come to Russia. The tsarist administration did not sleep either. One can give an example of a dispatch addressed to the inspector of agriculture of the province, sent from the office of the Tambov governor: Michurin. As a result of the request I received on this occasion from the Department of Agriculture, I ask Your Highness to inform me how much this activity of Michurin benefited the local economy and deserves, in your opinion, encouragement. On September 5, a response was sent to the governor's office: "The horticulture of I.V. Michurin, located 2-3 versts from the city of Kozlov, is almost the only place in Russia where hundreds of new varieties of fruit, berry and flower varieties have been bred and are being bred by hybridization plants.Michurin has been engaged in hybridization for more than 30 years, and during this time he has bred and put on the market a large number of new varieties of predominantly fruit plants.Michurin's works are extremely valuable and gained fame not only in Russia, but also abroad ... why I find that he deserves every encouragement, not only honorary awards, but also financial assistance, since Michurin does not have the means for the necessary expansion of his extremely useful business.

The Romanovsky sign was granted, and the scientist wore this award with pleasure. In passing, we note that Michurin was proud that he was a nobleman and served his fatherland. So, in the act of registration of land property, received by him in 1915, in the column “Rank and rank of the actual owner”, instead of “Little nobleman”, he wrote “Nobleman of the Ryazan province”.

“Our researcher Frank N. Meyer, after talking to you in January, wrote to us that you might be useful in our experiments, which we are now doing with trees and shrubs in our northwestern steppes. Would you kindly prepare this list in such a way that we can get an idea of ​​how much of each type you could deliver to us and what reward you would like to receive. ...If you wish to sell the entire collection, please set a price for the entire collection, and we will decide whether we can buy it for the price you set or not. Material will be allocated for packing the collection, and delivery will be carried out on a steamer sent from America.”
There were other proposals for the purchase of varietal material - from Australia and a number of European countries.

In the same year, Professor Meyer officially offered Michurin, on behalf of the US Department of Agriculture, to move to America and continue working in Quebec on condition of payment of 8,000 dollars a year. Michurin was 58 years old, ignorance of the English language, the illness of his wife, who underwent two operations, did not favor the trip. However, Michurin did not reject the offer, as evidenced by a letter (January 31, 1913) written to the Russian gardener and acclimatizer Voikov: “As for the wholesale sale of all new varieties of plants, I think it will be possible to deal with them [with the Americans].”
However, the plans of the scientist were confused by the war.

In the summer of 1915, a cholera epidemic raged in Kozlov. In this year, Michurin's wife, Alexandra Vasilievna, died. An unprecedented flood led to the death of part of the nursery. On the basis of surviving plants, Michurin determined the law of "inheritance" and developed a method for breeding more resistant varieties.

Before the revolution, Michurin's nursery had more than 900 varieties of plants ordered from the USA, France, Germany, Japan and other countries. Ivan Vladimirovich was an apolitical person in life, but he met the October Revolution calmly. There was still shooting on the streets when Michurin appeared at the newly organized county land department, where he met with the former farm laborer Dedov, the commissar of the land department, and told him: "I want to work for the new government." The latter ordered on the same day to convene a board meeting on the Michurin case, promised to notify the People's Commissariat of Agriculture and suggested that the land committee of the Donskoy Sloboda take measures to protect the nursery. Dedov provided financial assistance to Michurin and his family.

On July 18, 1918, Dedov wrote to Michurin: “Submitting a copy of the Collegium’s resolution of June 29 and copies of relations to the local council and the Moscow Commissariat of Agriculture, the agronomic department asks you, Ivan Vladimirovich, to calmly continue your exceptionally useful work for the homeland ... ".

On November 22, 1918, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture took charge of the nursery, approving Michurin as the head with the right to invite staff for a broader formulation of the case. The scientist was given an allowance in the amount of 3,000 rubles for the production of work. During this difficult time, Michurin not only took part in the agronomic work of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, he advised agricultural specialists on breeding, combating drought, and raising productivity. In his articles, Michurin repeatedly urged agronomists to work for the benefit of the new social system: “... Real workers in horticulture will have the opportunity to continue their activities under the new system, perhaps on an even larger scale ... You can’t cling to a part when the whole is striving forward ".
By 1920, Michurin bred over 150 new hybrid varieties, among which were: apple trees - 45 varieties, pears - 20, cherries - 13, plums - 15, sweet cherries - 6, gooseberries - 1, strawberries - 1, actinidia - 5, mountain ash - 3, walnuts - 3, apricots - 9, almonds - 2, quince - 2, grapes - 8, currants - 6, raspberries - 4, blackberries - 4, mulberries (mulberry tree) - 2, nuts (hazelnuts) - 1, tomatoes - 1, lilies - 1, white acacia - 1. In addition to the new hybrid assortment, the nursery had over 800 species of original plant forms collected by Michurin from various parts of the globe.

The scope of the experiments required an associate, however, in connection with the refusal of the son to follow in the footsteps of his father and his secret departure to another city, the scientist faced the question of a successor.

In 1920, Michurin invited Gorshkov, an agronomist-fruit grower, who worked at that time in Kozlov as a district horticultural specialist and was a follower of Michurin. Gorshkov organized the reproduction department of the nursery on the lands of the former Trinity Monastery, which was located 5 kilometers from the Michurin estate. In his autobiography, the scientist wrote: “Tens of thousands of experiments have passed through my hands. I have grown a mass of new varieties of fruit plants, from which several hundred new varieties have been obtained, suitable for cultivation in our gardens, and many of them are in no way inferior in their qualities to the best foreign varieties. Now I can’t even believe myself, how I, with my weak, sickly constitution, could endure all this.

At the age of 45, Michurin established a strict working hours regime, which remained unchanged until the end of his life. Getting up at 5 am, he worked in the nursery until 12 with a break for tea at 8 am, at 12 - a half-hour lunch, after which he spent an hour and a half reading newspapers and looking through special periodicals, an hour for rest. From 3 to 5 Michurin worked in a nursery or a room, depending on the circumstances and the weather, at 9 pm dinner for 20 minutes, until 12 at night - work on correspondence and then sleep.

Left a widower early, he no longer thought about family ties, retired to his estate-garden, fenced off by the river from the city, communicated with a very narrow circle of people. He did not tolerate the raznochintsy intelligentsia, ignored the merchant environment, rarely left the nursery. The only constant connection with the world was a huge correspondence with gardeners, Russian and foreign scientists.

In Soviet biographical literature, the poverty of the scientist was emphasized, because of which he could not publish his works. But the real reason was the lack of time to work out the provisions of scientific work on hybridization ("Heredity and Environment", "Theory of Education"). They were based on excellent experiments, but the theoretical part suffered. At the same time, the beginning of the development of genetics required a rethinking of some of Michurin's provisions, which required additional experiments.

Michurin understood this, but directed his efforts towards achieving financial independence, choosing the path of industrial gardening with high profitability. Ivan Vladimirovich stated that breeding a variety is half the battle, it must be conveyed to gardeners. And in the catalogs he sent out, he not only offered more than 2,000 seedlings and seeds, but also indicated the yield: “I dare to assure you that the profitability of some of the plant varieties I offer, under favorable local conditions, reaches up to 2,000 rubles, and sometimes more than one tithe” . And these statements were supported by the real results of gardeners.

And how many unique colors Michurin's price list offered! There are up to twenty varieties of roses alone, among which were bred personally by him. And gardeners bought them in considerable quantities. Few people know that the scientist brought out a violet lily (the lily has no smell, but the Michurinskaya one exuded the aroma of violet). Lily is a noble flower, which was included in the state emblems of many rulers of France, Florence, but it occupied a special place in the state emblem of the Dutch, from which an offer to sell all the bulbs immediately followed. For this variety, they offered 20,000 rubles.

Ivan Vladimirovich was a good manager. He constantly advertised the best varieties in various periodicals. In a letter to the editor of Progressive Horticulture and Horticulture, Michurin mentioned that there were about 10,000 of his regular customers among the magazine's subscribers. Even under the condition of the lowest cost - 20 kopecks - a bag of seeds or seedlings, the scientist's income was considerable.

The scientist offered the government, which bought tobacco for cigarettes abroad, to create its own plantations and grow its variety of tobacco, which ripened well and was able to give a high income to the state, - followed by a refusal. Michurin himself until the last days of his life smoked only his own brand. It was with his light hand that the inhabitants of the northern regions of our country began to sow tobacco in their gardens, and instead of cigarette cases they rolled cigarettes of any thickness and length.

For a long time it was assumed that the scientist and practical gardener was unmercenary and terribly poor under the tsarist regime. However, the brilliant journalist Mikhail Belykh in his book "Unknown Michurin", having studied the archives, convincingly debunked this legend. Here is a part of his research from the fund of the scientist No. 6856, stored in the Moscow archive:

"...P. 770. Introductory sheet issued by the Tambov district court for the ownership of a house in Tambov. July 8, 1883;

item 771. Note by I.V. Michurin on the purchase of land in the settlement of Panskoe. 1888;

item 773. Boundary plans of the estate plot of I.V. Michurin and registration for the right to use land in the Prigorodnaya volost of the Kozlovsky district of the Tambov province. July 29, 1898; January 25, 1899; March 10, 1928;

774. Powers of attorney issued by I.V. Michurin's daughter Maria Ivanovna Michurina and Nikolai Yegorovich Nikonov to conduct the case of 57 acres of land that were after the death of aunts I.V. Michurin - Tatyana Ivanovna and Varvara Ivanovna Michurina owned by I.V. Michurin and his relatives in 1903;

item 775. Insurance certificates issued by I.V. Michurin by the insurance company "Salamander" and the Tambov city government in 1908, 1909, 1912, 1917;

p.776. Contracts for the lease of 5 acres of land on the Voronezh River by IV Michurin. 1909, 1919;

p. 777. Documents on the claim of I.V. Michurin to Fortunin on the recovery of rent for 8 acres of land in the Penza province ... ".

If we add to this incomplete extract that foreign emissaries bought large quantities of varietal fruit and berry seedlings and legally shipped them abroad, then it is simply incorrect to say that the great gardener was poor. And Michurin himself said more than once: “To own the land and be hungry is contrary to nature itself.”

Earlier we mentioned that the Michurin family lived for two years in a hut - after moving from the Turmasovsky site to a new one - near the suburban settlement Donskoye. But next to the hut, they also had a small temporary hut until their own house was being built. Ivan Vladimirovich competently designed, calculated the estimate and built a house on the banks of the Lesnoy Voronezh River in 1899-1900. The building is a two-story red brick building. Today, on the outer wall, at the entrance, a memorial plaque testifies: "I. V. Michurin lived and worked here in 1900-1935."

It is interesting to visit Michurin's room, which served as a multifunctional office: a library, a laboratory, a workshop for precision mechanics and optics, in which devices were made. There was also a forge here - Michurin forged and soldered using a furnace of his own design. In the workshop, he invented tools: secateurs, budding for grafting wilds with a peephole, gais-fuss-chisel, intended for grafting plants with a cutting, and much more. There are several improved meteorological instruments on the walls of the office, among them a device for measuring radiation invented by Michurin. Next to the shelf is a distillation apparatus invented by the scientist, which is necessary to determine the percentage of rose oil in a new variety of oil-bearing rose he bred, which is still used today.

The scientist also designed a lightweight internal combustion engine. In his experiments, he used electricity, which was generated by a hand dynamo he had made. A rich legacy was left by scientists in the field of art. Ivan Vladimirovich perfectly mastered not only graphics, but also the complex technique of watercolor. The completed drawings were included in his scientific works and in the atlas of plants and fruits.

Michurin met the Soviet power calmly, but, seeing the rampant anarchy, the confusion that began the unauthorized expropriation of land, he went to the land committee to save the nursery and offered his services to the new government.

In order to correctly evaluate the work of the gardener Michurin, it is necessary to understand what horticulture and horticulture were like in tsarist times. It is known that of the entire bulky assortment of fruit and berry plants, only 20 percent had economic value. The rest only depleted the land. Large gardens were concentrated in the farms of landowners and monasteries.

In the noble estates at the gardens, greenhouses, there were gardeners, as a rule, discharged from abroad. These specialists, if they expanded the range of trees, bushes and flowers, then grew them either in greenhouses or in barrels with earth, which they transferred in the spring to the garden, in the fall to a warm storage. True, there were also titled amateur gardeners - Prince Trubetskoy, Baroness Bostrim, Count Kleinmichel. But their activity was limited to competition for the presence of rare exotic plants and participation in the distribution of price lists for seeds, bulbs and cuttings. As an example, let's take prices for products from the "Catalogue of trees and shrubs, fruit and other plants sold in the garden establishment of Baroness Maria Pavlovna Bistrom". The cost of a one-year-old pear is 25 kopecks, a two-year-old pear is 30 kopecks, a three-year-old pear is 40 kopecks. Cherry "Vladimirskaya" - 5 and 10 kopecks apiece, 100 pieces - 4 rubles 48 kopecks. Strawberries and wild strawberries for 25 pieces - 40 kopecks, a hundred - 1 ruble 50 kopecks. American agave (greenhouse) - from 1 to 15 rubles.

To get an idea of ​​prices, we note that in 1849 a pood of first-class beef cost 6 rubles 40 kopecks, a pood of rye bread - 3-4 kopecks, a pood of sterlet - 7 rubles 50 kopecks, a bucket of vodka (depending on the variety) - 5-16 rubles (state bucket - 12.3 liters). In 1902, a bucket of vodka cost 4 rubles, chrome boots - 2 rubles, tarpaulin boots - 1 ruble, a pound of meat - 40-60 kopecks, a pound of sieve bread - 3 kopecks. In 1908, the monthly salary of a cook was 14 rubles, a servant - 12 rubles, a policeman - 40 rubles, a city chairman - 200 rubles.

Based on the salary received, the list price offered for the peasant was not cheap.

It is no coincidence that Ivan Vladimirovich managed in practice to acquire financial independence even on rented land. Appointed by the Soviet government as the director of the nursery, two years later he put it on self-support and self-sufficiency. For the Soviet government, such ascetics-transformers of nature were a rare find, and the more fame spread about them, the more generous the power was to them.

"1. To issue to I.V. Michurin a special act indicating his state merits, expressed in many years of work on the breeding of many valuable varieties of fruit plants, and to secure to him for life the land plot on which his garden is located.

2. Select I.V. Michurin 500,000 rubles in 1922 banknotes at his personal, unaccountable disposal ...

3. Instruct the editorial and publishing department of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to collect and publish all the works of Michurin with his biography, portrait, under the general editorship of Professor N.I. Vavilov.
It was this Decree that allowed Michurin to be exempt from many taxes. From that time on, Ivan Vladimirovich really got stronger financially.

Lenin was the first member of the government to pay attention to the breeder-biologist. The leader of the revolution wrote a note to Kalinin, "All-Russian Starosta", ordering him to create a commission and send it to Kozlov with the aim of studying the question of horticulture and Michurin's work on the spot. Kalinin came to visit Michurin twice, and, as can be seen from a short letter, the work of the gardener was positively evaluated: “Dear Ivan Vladimirovich!
As a reminder of myself, I am sending you a small package. Do not mistake it for an act of good will of a person of authority. This is just my sincere desire to somehow emphasize respect and sympathy for you and your work.
With sincere regards, M. Kalinin. 15/XII 1922”.

On January 28, 1923, on Michurin's memorandum on the issue of disbursing funds for the further expansion of the nursery, Kalinin wrote to the People's Commissar of Agriculture: “TOV. Yakovenko! I think this matter needs to be done as a matter of urgency. I have no doubt that the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will go forward.”

Representatives of local authorities rendered concrete assistance to the nursery. So, by the decision of the provincial economic meeting on March 19, 1923, five best gardens and land plots with a total area of ​​915 acres were assigned to the nursery as dues. In 1923, the first All-Union Agricultural Exhibition was organized in Moscow. Exhibits from the Michurin nursery, unprecedented varieties of plants, fruits and berries, bred by scientists, surprised even experienced gardeners. The commission, headed by Professor Vavilov, awarded Michurin the highest award and presented him with the following address:

“Dear Ivan Vladimirovich! The experts of the 1st All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, having become acquainted with your exhibits, send you cordial greetings, wishes of health and continued such brilliant success in the creation of new varieties.
Moscow, September 12, 1923.

In the country, on the anniversary of the gardener-breeder, a real campaign was launched to glorify the scientist. For his outstanding half-century, exceptionally valuable work on breeding new improved varieties of fruit and berry plants, Michurin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR with the appointment of a lifetime pension.

One of the many varieties bred by Michurin. From left to right:

1. Rowan "Michurinskaya dessert"
2. Above - blackberry "Abundant", below - raspberry "Texas"
3. Gooseberry "Black Moor"

In the autumn of 1929, the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR, the regional and district executive committees of the Central Chernozemsk Region realized Michurin's old dream. In Kozlov, the country's first technical school for the selection of fruit and berry crops was opened. Soon the first volume of Michurin's capital works, The Results of Half a Century of Work, came out of print, covering the basics of the methodology of his breeding work. Some scientists who disagreed with a number of Michurin's works criticized the "revolutionary of nature", to which he sharply replied: "Get to work, set up experiments, observe for yourself and check."

On June 7, 1931, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR awarded the scientist the Order of Lenin for particularly outstanding services in the creation of new forms of plants of exceptional importance for the development of fruit growing, and for special work of national importance in this area.
On September 18, 1934, before his birthday, Michurin wrote to Comrade Stalin: “Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! The Soviet government and the party you lead turned me from a single experimenter, not recognized and ridiculed by official science and officials of the tsarist department of agriculture, into a leader and organizer of experiments with hundreds of thousands of plants. The Communist Party and the working class gave me everything I needed - everything an experimenter could want for his work. ... The Soviet government awarded me the highest award for a citizen of our land, renaming the city of Kozlov to the city of Michurinsk, gave me the Order of Lenin, richly published my works ... Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! I am already 80 years old, but the creative energy that millions of workers and peasants of the Soviet Union are full of, instills in me, an old man, a thirst to live and work under your leadership for the benefit of the cause of socialist construction of our proletarian state. I. Michurin.
In connection with the next anniversary, Michurin received a greeting from Stalin: "I greet you from the bottom of my heart, Ivan Vladimirovich, in connection with the sixtieth anniversary of your fruitful work for the benefit of our great Motherland. I wish you good health and new successes in the transformation of fruit growing. I firmly shake hands."

In a reply telegram, Michurin wrote: “Dear Iosif Vissarionovich, a telegram on your behalf was for me the highest award for all 80 years of my life, it is dearer to me than any other awards. I am happy with your great attention. Your Michurin."

The local authorities were not far behind. So, Yakovlev, the people's commissar of agriculture, freed Ivan Vladimirovich from almost all everyday problems: he had at his disposal food, clothes, a telephone, a car, a house for children, and even a bridge (still in operation) across the river directly to the scientist's nursery. During one of his visits, Yakovlev sets the task for scientists to develop varieties that come into fruiting time not in 10 years, but in 3-4 years, which would significantly increase the efficiency of gardens.

The cult of the scientist was created not only by the Soviet government, but also by academic professors. At the solemn anniversary (60 years of work) meeting, responding to greetings and speeches, Ivan Vladimirovich said: “The whole point is that with this splendor of the celebration, our government shows the importance of gardening so that all state and collective farms pay special attention to this business to increase the productivity of their gardens and enter into a more prosperous life. Michurin was especially ardently supported by Professor Vavilov and such a controversial figure as Academician Lysenko. We note right away that the essence of Michurin's provisions was reflected in the works of these scientists in different ways, but on June 1, 1935, all twelve full members of the Academy of Sciences unanimously elected Michurin an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

People considered Michurin a good sorcerer and a great healer. He knew herbs with medicinal properties, prepared ointments, decoctions, tinctures from them. He treated his wife with cancer with tinctures, which extended her life by nineteen years. It was rumored that Ivan Vladimirovich saw kidney stones and successfully removed them. He was able to influence the growth of plants, knew how to talk with them. Out of a thousand seedlings, he left two or three, but those chosen by him really turned out to be hybrids. Secretly from him, his assistants tried to replant the seedlings he had rejected. None survived. He could talk to a dying plant for hours, and some came back to life. Dogs did not touch him, cats adored him, and hundreds of birds flocked to his nursery for lunch. Trained frogs lived in the garden.

The years took their toll. Ivan Vladimirovich fell ill, stopped eating, experiencing pain in his stomach. To the arriving council of doctors, he announced the diagnosis of the disease: "Carcinoma (cancer) of the lesser curvature of the stomach." The doctors confirmed this diagnosis. June 7, 1935, at 9:30, Ivan Vladimirovich died.

In his work, IV Michurin widely used hybridization. In doing so, he took into account the complex nature of hybrids. He believed that hybrid seedlings go through critical periods at various stages of development, during which the realization of parental genes of different quality occurs.

Based on this assumption, I.V. Michurin applied the methods of raising seedlings, influencing them with environmental factors. He used various methods of tillage, fertilization, the mentor method.

The mentor method consists in the fact that a plant is grafted into the crown of a hybrid seedling, the properties of which must be transferred to the hybrid. Sometimes a hybrid is grafted onto an appropriate rootstock.

Remote hybridization in the works of Michurin

I.V. Michurin also widely used. He found that the hybridization of southern varieties with local varieties usually dominates the characteristics of local varieties. To avoid this, he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to select parents from different geographical areas.

So, he brought out the winter pear variety Bere due to the hybridization of the South European pear Bere royal with the Ussuri pear. With such hybridization in a hybrid, the hereditary basis of both initial parental forms turns out to be in unusual natural conditions.

By changing the conditions for growing hybrids, Michurin brought up in them economically valuable traits, borrowed from both one and the other of the parents. In this particular case, the Bere winter variety inherited large-fruitedness, high taste qualities and the possibility of long-term winter storage from the southern parent, and cold resistance from the Ussuri parent.

Due to the fact that organisms under the influence of the environment can change within the limits of the reaction norm, external factors can influence the phenotypic manifestations of signs. This was used by Michurin when growing hybrids of fruit trees, changing certain conditions at various stages of ontogeny. The dominance of traits that find the most favorable conditions for development in the environment, Michurin called dominance control.

To overcome non-crossing during distant hybridization, Michurin developed a number of methods.

Michurin methods

Method of vegetative convergence consists in the preliminary grafting of one plant species onto another. As a result, the chemical composition of tissues changes, which, apparently, promotes the germination of pollen tubes in the pistil of the mother plant. In this way, fertilization can be achieved by hybridizing species that do not usually interbreed.

Mediator Method consists in the fact that if it is necessary to obtain a hybrid between non-crossing species A and B, first the hybridization of the crossing of species B with C is carried out, and already the hybrid is crossed with species A.

Pollination method with a mixture of pollen from different species may also favor the germination of pollen tubes in the pistil of the flower and promote fertilization.

Most of the varieties bred by Michurin are heterozygous by genotype, therefore they cannot be propagated sexually, they will split. They are propagated vegetatively.

Michurin paid much attention to the acclimatization of southern fruit plants and initiated the northward movement of grapes, apricots, cherries, etc.

Much has been done by breeders to develop new varieties of agricultural plants. The merit of N.V. Tsitsin, P.P. Lukyanenko, V.N. Remeslo, F.G. Kirichenko, V.E. Pisarev, who bred new varieties of wheat, is great in this. V.S. Pustovoit created high-oil varieties of sunflower, I.M. Khadzhinov achieved great success in corn breeding.

For 60 years of continuous work, Michurin has bred about 300 varieties of fruit and berry crops

For 60 years of continuous work, he brought out 300 varieties of apple trees, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, grapes and other types of fruit and berry crops. However, the life of a doctor of biology, an honored worker of science and technology, an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, an academician of VASKhNIL was difficult.

Michurin's ancestors were small landed nobles. Ivan Michurin continued the family tradition, since his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were keenly interested in gardening, collected a rich collection of fruit trees and a library of agricultural literature. Michurin's father, after his resignation, settled in his Vershina estate in the Ryazan province, where he was engaged in gardening and beekeeping.

Ivan was born the seventh child, and his brothers and sisters died as children. Mother Maria Petrovna, who was in poor health, fell ill with a fever and died at the age of thirty-three, when Vanya was four years old. The boy was engaged with his father in the garden, apiary, planting and vaccinations. At the age of eight, he was perfectly able to produce budding, copulation, and ablactation of plants. He studied first at home, and then at the Pronsk district school of the Ryazan province, devoting his free time to working in the garden. On June 19, 1872, he graduated from the Pronskoye district school, after which his father prepared his son for admission to the St. Petersburg Lyceum. But at this time, the father suddenly fell ill: he became mentally ill and was sent to Ryazan for treatment. The estate was mortgaged and gone for debts. Uncle, Lev Ivanovich, helped Michurin decide on the Ryazan provincial gymnasium. However, Michurin was expelled from it for "disrespect for the authorities." The reason was a case when, while greeting the director of the gymnasium on the street, the schoolboy Michurin did not take off his hat in front of him due to severe frost and an ear disease.

In 1872 Michurin moved to the town of Kozlov (subsequently Michurinsk). In order to somehow exist, he worked as a commercial clerk in the goods office of the railway station with a salary of 12 rubles per month and a 16-hour working day. Michurin rose to the rank of assistant head of the station, but he was fired due to a conflict with the head. From 1876 to 1889, Michurin was a fitter of clocks and signaling devices on the section of the Kozlov-Lebedyan railway. In 1874 he married the daughter of a distillery worker. From this marriage two children were born: son Nikolai and daughter Maria.

Due to lack of funds, Michurin opened a watch workshop in his apartment. He devoted his free time to work on the creation of new varieties of fruit and berry crops. In 1875, he rented a city estate in the vicinity of Kozlov for 3 rubles a month, where he began to conduct plant breeding experiments. There he collected a collection of more than 600 species of fruit and berry plants. Soon the leased land was full. Michurin bought the estate with a garden with the help of a bank and immediately mortgaged it due to lack of funds and large debts for 18 years. Here he moved the entire collection of garden plants. But after a few years, this land turned out to be overcrowded. In the early autumn of 1887, Michurin bought a plot seven kilometers from the city. He earned money for it by overwork. Plants from the city plot were carried by members of the Michurin family for seven kilometers on their shoulders. There was no house on the new site, they went there on foot and lived in a hut for two seasons. This site became one of the first breeding nurseries in Russia. Subsequently, it became the central estate of the state farm-garden them. I. V. Michurin, with an area of ​​​​2500 hectares of orchards with the Michurin assortment.

In 1893-1896, when the nursery already had thousands of hybrid seedlings of plums, sweet cherries, apricots and grapes, Michurin was convinced of the failure of the method of acclimatization by grafting, and concluded that the soil of the nursery - a powerful black soil - is oily and "spoils" hybrids. In 1900, he moved the plantings to a site with poorer soils "to ensure the "Spartan" education of hybrids. In 1906, the first scientific works of I. V. Michurin, devoted to the problems of breeding new varieties of fruit trees, saw the light of day. In the summer of 1915, during the First World War, a cholera epidemic raged in Kozlov. Then Michurin's wife, Alexandra Vasilievna, died. And the second blow - in the same year, a heavy flood in early spring flooded the nursery, after which severe frosts and a drop in water destroyed the school of two-year-olds intended for sale with ice. As a result, many hybrids died.

After the Civil War, Lenin drew attention to Michurin's work and instructed Sereda, People's Commissar for Agriculture, to organize the study of scientific work and practical achievements. The Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR recognized the experimental M. nursery as an institution of national importance. On the basis of the Michurinsky nursery, the Breeding and Genetic Station of fruit and berry crops was organized, which was reorganized into the Central Genetic Laboratory. I. V. Michurina. Michurin died on June 7, 1935 at the age of 80 from stomach cancer.

"Evening Moscow" offers you a selection of interesting facts from the biography of the famous biologist.

1. Michurin could talk for hours with a dying plant, and it would come back to life. He could easily enter any yard and the huge watchdogs did not bark. Moreover, the birds safely landed on his hat, shoulders, palm and pecked at grains.

2. Only at the age of 51 did he start publishing his scientific papers. The popularity of Michurin's methods has stepped beyond the borders of Russia, and the breeder's fruit varieties occupied significant areas in the USA and Canada. In 1898, the All-Canadian Farmers' Congress, which met after a harsh winter, stated that all the old varieties of cherries, both of European and American origin, had died out in Canada, with the exception of "Fertile Michurina" from the city of Kozlov.

3. During Michurin's youth, good tobacco was not grown in Russia. The best varieties of yellow Turkish tobacco did not ripen. The breeder set the task of introducing new tobacco varieties into the culture - an earlier ripening period, with a lower percentage of nicotine. From the fertilization of yellow Bulgarian early tobacco with Sumatran small-leaved tobacco, he received a new early-ripening fragrant variety that can ripen not only in the center of Russia, but also in the Urals. He also developed the agricultural technology of tobacco and designed a machine for cutting it.

4. The Dutch, who know a lot about flowers, offered Michurin a lot of money (20 thousand royal rubles in gold) for the bulbs of an unusual lily that looks like a lily and smells like a violet, with the condition that this flower will no longer be grown in Russia. And they offered him big money. Michurin did not sell the lily, although he lived in poverty. On the monument in the center of Michurinsk, the scientist's jacket is buttoned to the "Female" side. Many believe that the sculptor made a mistake. However, Matvey Manizer, to whom the monument was commissioned, sculpted it from photographs. Due to extreme poverty, Michurin turned old clothes himself. He himself sewed mittens, wore shoes until they fell apart. Everything he earned went to pay the workers. There was nothing left for him.

5. In the summer of 1912, the office of Nicholas II sent one of its prominent officials, Colonel Salov, to Kozlov to Michurin. The colonel was surprised by the modest appearance of the Michurin estate, which consisted of a brick outbuilding and a wattle shed, as well as the poor clothes of its owner, whom he first mistook for a watchman. Salov limited himself to reviewing the plan of the nursery, without going into it, and reasoning about the sanctity of "patriotic duty", the slightest deviation from which "borders on sedition." A month and a half later, Michurin received two crosses: Anna of the 3rd degree and the Green Cross "for labors in agriculture."

6. During the civil war, when whites came to the city, he hid the wounded reds in his basement, and vice versa: when the reds came, he hid the wounded whites. How it happened that no one denounced him is a mystery.

7. The day after the October Revolution of 1917, despite the continued shooting in the streets, Michurin appeared at the newly organized county land department and declared: "I want to work for the new government." And she began to help him.

8. In 1918, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the RSFSR expropriated Michurin's nursery, however, immediately appointing him the head himself.

9. Michurin's room served as an office, laboratory, library, fine mechanics and optics workshop, and even a forge. Michurin himself invented and designed his own tools: secateurs, barometers, a grafting chisel, an elegant portable apparatus for distilling essential oil from rose petals, a lighter, and a cigarette case. With a special machine, he stuffed cigarettes with tobacco of the "Michurin" variety. He had a unique workshop for making dummies of fruits and vegetables from wax. They were considered the best in the world and were so skillful that others tried to bite them. He forged and soldered all the equipment using a furnace of his own design.

10. Neighbors loved and feared Ivan Vladimirovich at the same time. The glory of a healer and a sorcerer was entrenched in him among the people. He knew many herbs that have medicinal properties, prepared all kinds of ointments and decoctions from them, healed migraine, mumps, renal colic, furunculosis, heart failure, even cancer, removed stones from the kidneys. He had the ability to influence the growth of plants and the behavior of people. It used to be that he walked with a cane and showed: “Leave this one, this one and this one, throw out the rest.” Out of 10,000 seedlings, by some instinct I determined two or three. His assistants, secretly from him, tried to replant the seedlings he had rejected, but none took root.

11. The so-called "chokeberry" is not a mountain ash (Sorbus), but an chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), also from the "Pink" family. Bred by Ivan Michurin at the end of the 19th century as a special variety of black chokeberry, with a different set of chromosomes. So chokeberry is not exactly chokeberry, but it is not rowan at all.

12. Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin was unlucky even after his death. He died Michurin at the age of 80 from stomach cancer. He bequeathed to bury himself next to the house, but it was not fulfilled mainly because in the spring everything around is flooded with flood waters. He rests next to the agricultural institute, created by him and from which the Soviet government removed his name. They also wanted to rename the city, but the residents opposed it. Kozlov was not known to anyone, but Michurinsk was known to everyone.

MICHURINSKY QUOTATION

"We cannot wait for favors from nature; it is our task to take them from her!"

"Gardening ... is one of the most beneficial occupations for the health of the population and the most productive in terms of profitability, not to mention its ennobling and softening effect on the character of a person, after field cultivation."

"The human brain originated from the walnut."

NAMED IN HONOR OF I.V. MICHURINA:

Plant species (Aronia mitschurinii A.K. Skvortsov & Maitul) - Aronia Michurina, or Aronia

Settlements: In 1932, the city of Kozlov, during the life of Ivan Vladimirovich, was renamed Michurinsk.

In 1968, the working settlement of the builders of the Ryazanskaya GRES was named Novomichurinsk.

The village of Michurovka, Pronsky district, Ryazan region, is named after his ancestors, the former owners of the village.

State farm named after Michurin in the Novosibirsk region of the Novosibirsk region.

State farm named after Michurin in the Michurinsky district of the Tambov region.

Michurino village in Kazakhstan, Astana.

Michurino village, Drochia region, Moldova.

Agricultural educational institutions:

Agricultural College. I.V. Michurin in the city of Michurinsk, Tambov region, which was founded on the initiative of the breeder.

Agrarian University. Michurin in the city of Michurinsk, Tambov Region.

State farm-technical school named after Michurin, Kazakhstan, Karaganda region, Abay district.

Agricultural research institutions:

Central Genetic Laboratory named after I.V. Michurin in the city of Michurinsk, Tambov Region.

All-Russian Institute of Genetics and Breeding of Fruit Plants. I. V. Michurina (VNIIGiSPR).

All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture. Michurin in the city of Michurinsk, Tambov Region.

Many streets and squares in different cities of the world, namely the Michurin street and collective farm in Mikhailovka (Mikhailovsky district, Zaporozhye region, Ukraine).

Lake and village in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region.

JOKE ON THE TOPIC:

Somehow Michurin climbed a birch tree for dill, fell down and was covered with apples.