Evaluation location: Leningradskaya oblast', Russian Federation
Investigations were carried out during the period from 1976 through 1998 at the
Pavlovsk (St.Petersburg) and the Far East (Vladivostok) experiment stations of VIR, as
well as in 156 natural populations of blue honeysuckle in the North of the European part
of Russia, Siberia, Transbaikalia and the Far East. A collection comprising 583 species,
cultivars and forms, and 15.600 seedlings from 316 combinations were studied. The
investigations employed morphological, anatomical, biochemical methods (including
DNA analysis), as well as studies of accessions ploidy and crossing ability. In breeding,
intraspecific and interspecific hybridization, open pollination, and γ-mutations were used.