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VIR/IHA Cannabis Germplasm Preservation Project - 1997

        Maintenance of the Cannabis collection under the Vavilov Research Institute/International Hemp Association (VIR/IHA) Cannabis Germplasm Preservation Project was undertaken at seven sites: the Pavlovsk, Yekaterinino, Ustimovka and Kuban Experiment Stations of the VIR, the Penza Institute of Agriculture, the Institute of Bast Crops, Ukraine and the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. All in all, 140 hemp seed accessions were sown. Of these, 17 accessions did not germinate, 18 were destroyed by field intruders, and 105 accessions produced seed (see table). Final seed weight data have not been received from Penza and Yekaterinino, though it is known that for 12-15 accessions, seed weight was less than 50 gr. This doesn’t seem to occur due to poor fecundity, but is more evidently associated with partial destruction of the plants by thieves. The 14 accessions having Yugoslavian origin, carefully maintained by Dr. Janos Berenji in Yugoslavia, yielded large amounts of seed from sufficiently large reproductions.
         In the Pushkin Laboratories of the VIR, a study was performed on different methods of plant isolation in the field. Eight replications of this experiment were made with four different isolation protocols. The rate of seed formation and the degree of depression of plant growth under isolation, as compared with open pollination, were analyzed. It is planned to use the most reliable version of isolation for maintenance of as large a number of hemp accessions as possible on sites protected from intruders.

Sofia Kutuzova (VIR) and
Robert C. Clarke (IHA)