Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin

Horticulturist, born near Dolgoye, Russia. At his private orchard at Koslov, which became a state institution, he developed many new varieties of fruit and berries. His theory of cross-breeding, which postulated the idea that acquired characteristics were heritable, became state doctrine amid much controversy.

In 1875, Michurin leased a strip of land of about 500 square metres not far from Tambov, began collecting plants, and started his research in pomology and selection.

In 1920, right after the end of the Russian Civil War, Vladimir Lenin ordered People's Commissar of Agriculture Semion Sereda to organize an analytic research on Michurin's works and practical achievements. On November 20, 1923, the Council of People's Commissars recognized Michurin's "fruit garden" as an institution of state importance. In 1928, the Soviets established a selectionist genetic station on the basis of Michurin's garden, which would be re-organized into the Michurin Central Genetic Laboratory in 1934.

Michurin made a major contribution in the development of genetics, especially in the field of pomology. Michurin studied the aspects of heredity in connection with the natural course of ontogenesis and external influence, creating a whole new concept of predominance. In his works, Michurin assumed a possibility of changing genotype under external influence.

Michurin was one of the founding fathers of scientific agricultural selection. He worked on hybridization of plants of similar and different origins, cultivating methods in connection with the natural course of ontogenesis, directing the process of predominance, evaluation and selection of seedlings, acceleration of process of selection with the help of physical and chemical factors.

Michurin’s method of crossing of geographically distant plants would be widely used by other selectionists. Michurin also proposed means for overcoming the genetic barrier of incompatibility during the process of hybridization, such as pollination of the young hybrids during their first florescence, preliminary vegetative crossing, use of a “mediator”, pollination with the mix of different kinds of pollen etc. Michurin was the one to start cultivation of his hybrids of grape, apricot, sweet cherry and other southern plants in the northern climates.

During the Lysenkoism campaign, Michurin (without his intentions) was promoted as a Soviet leader in theory of evolution, in an opposition to genetics, pejoratively called Weismanism-Morganism-Mendelism by Soviet propaganda. The following Michurin's phrase was widely popularized in the Soviet Union: "Мы не можем ждать милостей от природы.

Throughout all his life Michurin worked to create new sorts of fruit plants.