Asparagus bean immature pods and seeds are popular as food products for healthy and functional nutrition. Gas chromatography with mass spectrometry was used to compare metabolomic profiles of seeds and pods yielded by old Chinese landraces and the modern cultivars ‘Yunanskaya’ and ‘Sibirskiy razmer’. About 120 compounds were identified. The content of a majority among groups of compounds was higher in pods than in seeds. The amount of free amino acids in pods was 47 times higher, polyols and phytosterols 5 times higher, phenolics 4 times higher, and organic acids and saponins 3 times higher than in seeds. Differences were found in the relative content of compounds. Among phenolic compounds, the dominant one for seeds was protocatechuic acid, and for pods 4-hydroxycinnamic acid. Only polyols were identified in seeds, but pods additionally contained ethanolamine, phytol, and phytosphingosine. The ratio for nonsaturated/saturated fatty acids was 2.2 in seeds and 1.4 in pods. Seeds contained more stigmasterol, and pods more β-sitosterol. Aglycones of saponins were identified: cycloartenol in seeds, α- and β-amyrins in pods. Oligosaccharides dominated in both seeds and pods. Landraces manifested higher protein content in pods, while modern cultivars had pods with higher contents of organic acids, polyols, monosaccharides, and fatty acids. The results obtained confirm the high nutritional value of asparagus bean seeds and pods, and the prospects of their use in various diets.

For a targeted search of initial breeding material for the quality of soybean seeds, it is necessary to know the patterns of the dependence of the corresponding seed characters on the weather and climatic conditions in a particular region. Global climatic change, the concretization of which is relevant, has a share in this dependence. Thus, the aim of this work was to identify the relationship between the variability of protein and oil content in soybean seeds with climatic parameters in the North Caucasus as well as trends in this variability over a long time period. The study of 1 442 soybean accessions from VIR collection in the Krasnodar region during 1987–2015 had been carried out and the tendencies of the variability of protein and oil content in seeds in this environment were estimated. The regression analysis in differences with forward stepwise selection of variables has been used to construct models for the dependence of the protein and oil content on generalized agrometeorological indices. During 1987–2015, for the period with temperatures above 10 °C, the sums of active temperatures increased by 218 °C/10 years and precipitation decreased by 20.9 mm/10 years. In the dynamics of protein content, a trend has been revealed as an increase by 2.5 % over 10 years, while there is no reliable trend in oil content. The maximum average mean of oil content and the smallest protein were in the middle-maturing accessions (22.2 and 38.8 %), and a relatively high protein content was detected, on average, in the early- (21.6 and 40.0 %) and late-maturing (20.2 and 39.9 %) varieties. The protein content had been increasing with a growth of the duration of the period with temperatures above 22 °C and decreasing with a raise in precipitation over a period of temperatures above 18 °C. The accumulation of oil in seeds was promoted by an increase of the hydrothermal coefficient over the period with temperatures above 19 °C, and, in late-maturating varieties, prevented by a prolonged autumn period with temperatures below 15 °C. Long-term growth in protein content is due to both climatic change and genetic improvement of varieties.

Nutrition is a source of energy, and building material for the human organism. The quality of food has an effect on the quality of individual life. Minerals and vitamins participate in various catalytic and regulatory functions of the main metabolic processes: absorption, transport, redox and biosynthesis of organic compounds, genetic information transfer, etc. Regular consumption of dietary fibers like β-glucans and oat-specific phenolics, antioxidants, and avenanthramides, stimulate innate and acquired immunity, prevent cancer, obesity, reduce glucose, total cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels and regulate the expression of cholesterol-related genes. Thus, all those compounds are vitally important for the normal functional status of the human body. A deficiency in one or another essential nutrient causes disruptions in human metabolism, thus leading to serious illnesses. Plants are the main source of essential nutrients that are bioavailable for humans. One of the most popular groups of staple crops are the small grains crops (SGC), so these crops are most often used for biofortification purposes. Exploiting the potential of plant resources, biofortification is a long-term strategy, aimed at increasing the number of essential micro- and macronutrients in major food sources and ensuring their bioavailability. The most productive way to implement such strategy is the active use of the possibilities offered by collections of plant genetic resources, including SGC, concentrated in various countries of the world. The collections of plant resources contain both cultivated plants and their wild relatives that possess the required composition of micro- and macronutrients. A complex scientific approach to studying plant germplasm collections, together with agricultural practices (soil enrichment with fertilizers with a required composition), genetic biofortification (traditional breeding, marker-assisted selection or genetic engineering tactics), and their combinations will lead to the development of new biofortified cultivars and improvement of old ones, which can be used to solve the problems of unbalanced nutrition (malnutrition or hidden hunger) in different regions of the world.

Mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) sprouts are popular over the world because of their taste, nutritional value, well-balanced biochemical composition, and other properties beneficial for human health. Germination conditions affect the composition of metabolites in mung bean sprouts, so a detailed study into its variability is required. This article presents the results of a comparison of the metabolite composition in the leaves of mung bean sprouts germinated first in the dark (DS) and then in the light (LS). Gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC–MS) made it possible to identify more than 100 compounds representing various groups of phytochemicals. Alcohols, amino acids, and saccharides predominated in the total amount of compounds. The analysis of metabolomic profiles exposed a fairly high intra- and intervarietal variability in the metabolite content. DS and LS differed in the qualitative and quantitative content of the identified compounds. The intravarietal variability was more pronounced in DS than in LS. DS demonstrated higher levels of saccharides, fatty acids, acylglycerols, and phenolic compounds, while amino acids were higher in LS. Changes were recorded in the quantitative content of metabolites participating in the response of plants to stressors—ornithine, proline, GABA, inositol derivatives, etc. The changes were probably induced by the stress experienced by the sprouts when they were transferred from shade to light. The analysis of variance and principal factor analysis showed the statistically significant effect of germination conditions on the content of individual compounds in leaves. The identified features of metabolite variability in mung bean genotypes grown under different conditions will contribute to more accurate selection of an illumination pattern to obtain sprouts with desirable biochemical compositions for use in various diets and products with high nutritional value.

Relevance. Currently, there is an interest in this country in vegetable varieties of Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (L.) Verdc. However, a small number of varieties adapted to different cultivation conditions prevents a wider distribution of this crop. The present work was aimed at creating new vegetable cowpea varieties adapted to the climatic conditions of southern regions of Russia.Materials and methods. The study was carried out in 1998-2018 in the Astrakhan Province (Astrakhan Experiment Station) and in 2012-2018 in Primorsky Territory (Far East Experiment Station). Vegetable cowpea accessions from the global VIR collection were studied.Results. Many years of breeding have resulted in creation of such varieties as ‘Astrakhanskaya krasavitsa’, ‘Kaspiyskaya zarya’, ‘Zhemchyuzhina Kaspiya’ and ‘Lyanchihe’, which were included in the State Register of Breeding Achievements in 2019. All varieties are characterized by earliness, high productivity, excellent quality of vegetable pods, high protein content in pods in the technical ripeness phase (29.5-33.5%), and by low demand to the soil fertility. ‘Zhemchyuzhina Kaspiya’, ‘Astrakhanskaya krasavitsa’ and ‘Kaspiyskaya zarya’ are tolerant to high temperatures, air drought and soil salinity. The growing season for these varieties lasts 62-68 days in the Astrakhan Province under irrigation, while technical ripeness of pods occurs in 46-50 days. The green pod yield is 16.1–28.2 t/ha and the seed yield is 1.91-2.71 t/ha. The ‘Lyanchihe’ variety tolerates humidity well; its growing season in southern Primorsky Territory is 97-110 days, and pods reach technical ripeness in 61-70 days. The green pod yield is 21.0-24.0 t/ha, and that of seeds is 2.38-2.64 t/ha. The released varieties will broaden the range of vegetable crops cultivated in this country and improve the quality of nutrition of the population.

Narrow-leaved lupine (Lupinus аngustifolius L.) is a widely cultivated leguminous forage and green manure crop with a potential for human nutrition. However, the presence of secondary metabolites – alkaloids – in lupine seeds considerably affects the quality of raw produce, reducing its nutritive value; in addition, high concentrations of alkaloids are toxic to humans and animals. Therefore, plant breeders working with lupine need to gain knowledge about the variability of alkaloid content in seeds of different genotypes and search for the sources of their low concentrations in the crop’s gene pool. The collection of narrow-leaved lupine genetic resources held by the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) offers wide opportunities for such search by means of mass screening. For its part, largescale gene pool screening requires the selection of an optimal technique to measure alkaloid content in seeds, so that it would be easily reproducible and as little labor-, time- and fund-consuming as possible. The results of the search for such method are presented. Qualitative and quantitative indices were compared when target compounds had been extracted with multicomponent mixtures and individual reagents (chloroform, methanol, etc.) and the extracts analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. High-performance liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry was also employed. Five major alkaloids were found to be present in all types of extracts: lupanine, 13-hydroxylupanine (dominant ones), angustifoline, sparteine, and isolupanine. The fullest extraction of alkaloids was observed when the extractant with an added alkaline agent was used (425 mg/100 g). The lowest level of extraction was registered with chloroform (216 mg/100 g). The significance of the differences was confirmed statistically.