A new adaptive, highly productive variety of winter soft wheat Vasilich, created at the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution ANTS “Donskoy”

Relevance . Winter wheat occupies significant agricultural areas in the Rostov region. Breeding work on developing new winter wheat varieties should be aimed at developing plants that will be of high productivity and at the same time will be resistant to unfavorable environmental conditions. It necessitates to increase the adaptability of plants. Methods . The current work was carried out in the southern part of the Rostov region on the fields of the breeding crop rotation of the FSBSI «ARC “Donskoy”» in 2022–2024 according to the methods of the SVT and a field trial. Results . The current paper has presented the results of developing the winter common wheat variety Vasilich. During the competitive variety testing, conducted on five forecrops (green manure fallow, peas, maize for grain, sunflower, winter wheat), the mean productivity of the new variety over three years was 8.97 t/ha, which was 1.43 t/ha higher than that of the standard variety Ermak. The variety Vasilich is characterized by its low height, resistance to lodging and to grain shedding in the ear, as well as high frost resistance, drought resistance and resistance to pathogens. The variety forms large grain with high nature weight, with density of 820 g/l. Protein percentage in grain is 14.2%, and 28.6% of gluten. The specific work of dough deformation, or flour strength reaches 278 u. a. The volume yield of bread from 100 grams of flour is 690 cubic centimeters. The variety has been included in the State List of Breeding Achievements for 2025 and approved for use in the Russian Federation in five regions, such as Central (3), Central Blackearth (5), North Caucasus (6), Middle Volga (7) and Lower Volga (8).