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5 International Scientific Online Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.15414/2021.9788055224015

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WOODY PLANTS SPECIMEN’S CONSERVATION IN THE NDP "SOFIYIVKA"
Ivan Kosenko, Olga Opalko, Volodymyr Hrabovyi, Anatoly Opalko

National Dendrological Park “Sofiyivka” of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
Uman, Ukraine; E-mail.: opalko_a@ukr.net

The value of the wild relatives of cultivated fruit, ornamental and technical woody plants
for horticulture, food industry, feed production, and pharmacy makes it necessary to increase
our efforts to develop integrative conservation approaches of these plants within their natural
habitats and their conservation and reproduction ex situ being that they can be valuable sources
of initial material for breeding. Although now, botanical gardens and dendrological parks
devote their resources to the study and ex situ conservation of plants, and nowadays "Sofiyivka"
has the status of a research institute of the NAS of Ukraine; however, in September 1796 Polish
magnate Stanislaw Potocki founded "Sofiyivka" not for scientific purposes but as a romantic
garden. I.e., historically, exotic plants in "Sofiyivka" as in other botanical gardens were
introduced with the medicinal aims or for displays of single specimens of vegetal curiosities,
but not to reflect the genetic diversity of the species. At present, "Sofiyivka" devote their
resources to the study and ex situ conservation of plants, as well as making the world's plant
species diversity known to the public. However, studying the morphological features of some
woody plants from the collection of "Sofiyivka" and analysis of the effectiveness of theirs
interspecific hybridization revealed their differences from the data given in the literature
sources. Because of this reason were initiated our researches.
Study of species-specific features of woody plants, hybridization, progeny analysis, clonal
selection, propagation of selected seedlings, and generalization of the observations were
performed using commonly used methods.
At present, "Sofiyivka" plant collections have about 4,000 taxa of living plants, with almost
1,000 trees, more than 1,500 shrubs, more than 110 vines, and more than 1,200 herbaceous and
aquatic plants. Comparison of morphological features of some woody plants specimen’s
(Corylus spp., Malus spp., Picea spp., Pinus spp., and Pyrus spp.) imported from the different
botanical gardens and their vegetative descendants with descriptions and photos given in the
online database founded by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (Great Britain), showed the
similarity and deviations of features of leaves, inflorescence, bark, trunk, and other
specifications. It may indicate a hybrid origin of the introduced plants. Although now,
"Sofiyivka" devote their resources to the study and ex situ conservation of plants, as well as
making the world's plant species diversity known to the public. However, the number of species
that can be genetically conserved in "Sofiyivka" or any botanical garden is limited because of
the available land plot areas deficit, and it would be prohibitively expensive at their expansion.
In addition, namely, very few individuals of each species can be held. Therefore, it severely
restricts the range of genetic diversity found in the wild that is protected. The modern plant
collections created at "Sofiyivka" support the implementation of scientific research related to
monitoring the condition and conservation of the plant world of the Forest-Steppe zone of
Ukraine; as well as for biotechnology, genetics, breeding, and reproductive plant biology; and
not only ensured the preservation of the historical core and development of the park but also
contributed to the creation of new horticultural cultivars.
Keywords: genetic diversity, horticulture, interspecific hybridization, plant collection.

Acknowledgments
This material is partly based on the work supported by the National dendrological park "Sofiyivka" of
the NAS of Ukraine "Theoretical fundamentals of hazelnut breeding using molecular genetic markers for
identification of species belonging of initial materials and hybrids generated" (SRN 0120U103133) in
compliance with the thematic plan of the research work.

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Spiritual Human Development
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