Green spaces in the conditions of urbanization perform important ecological and social functions, including environmental, sanitation, nature protection, recreation, architectural and planning, aesthetic.
Landscaping is an effective and relatively inexpensive way to improve habitat. It costs only 5% of the cost of housing construction: a figure incomparable to the costs of special engineering structures, which are not always applicable and not efficient enough to solve environmental problems, especially in large cities.
In all civilized countries, great importance is attached to the quantity and quality of green spaces. This indicator is considered an important indicator of sustainable and successful development of society. Thus, in the states of the European Union, when evaluating the urban environment, such parameters as greening in general, provision of such territories within a 15-minute radius, as well as biological diversity are taken into account.
The main requirements for the organization of urban ecosystems in Belarus are laid down in regulatory and legal acts and industry regulations. The level of greenery is not lower than 40%, within the residential or mixed zone - not lower than 25%. Real indicators vary significantly even in large cities of the republic. Thus, in Minsk, the area of the territory covered with green spaces is about 44 percent, in Brest - 41.7 percent, Vitebsk - 15.9 percent, Grodno - 13.8 percent. In general, our capital is ahead of many European metropolises in this characteristic of living comfort. However, if in the Partizan district of the city of Minsk there is 35.8 m2 of green spaces per one resident, then in Moscow and Frunzen districts - only 3.8-4.8 m2.
The tendency to reduce the level of greenness due to the confiscation of land for construction and parking lots, due to the felling of trees and bushes, weakened by diseases and other unfavorable factors due to the change in the ecology of their growth, harms the ecology of large cities.
Therefore, despite the apparent prosperity, there are enough problems in domestic green construction. There are even more of them in industrial floriculture, tied to imported technologies and varieties. The lack of a developed full-fledged infrastructure in these areas of the economy is one of the reasons for the low competitiveness of domestic ornamental horticulture products, a large volume of import of seeds, seedlings of ornamental plants, cut flowers, consumables, packaging, inventory, and technical means for plant care.
Sustainable development of any branch of the national economy is determined by scientific and technical support. It has to be stated that neither in green construction, nor in industrial floriculture, this is practically absent. Individual issues are resolved by the Central Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (CBS of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus). Its main task is the accumulation and maintenance of the gene pool of ornamental plants, which serves as a source of renewal of assortments, a seedbed for breeding new plants, and the source genetic material for obtaining own varieties.
Within the framework of current state programs, projects and on a contractual basis, research in the field of green construction and industrial floriculture is constantly being conducted at the CBS. Many of the developments are effectively used, as evidenced by the species-rich plantings in Belarusian cities and the good quality of domestic flower production.
Central Academy of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus is engaged in the development of phytodesign of interiors, arrangement of winter gardens. Here, on a strictly scientific basis, the collection of greenhouse plants is expanded to create thematic landscapes of various functional purposes, and orders for iconic objects are fulfilled.
In order to strengthen the role of domestic science in solving the most urgent problems of green construction and industrial floriculture, to promote their transition to an innovative path of development, by the decision of the Bureau of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus No. 453 on the basis of the Central Botanical Garden on October 21, 2015, the Republican Scientific and Practical Center of the Ornamental Garden was established.
Its main tasks include the following:
Scientific support for the work of the RNPC of ornamental horticulture is entrusted to the subdivision of the National Academy of Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus: laboratory of greenhouse plants, introduction of woody plants, biodiversity of plant resources, introduction and selection of ornamental plants, plant protection, microclonal reproduction of plants, environmental physiology; department of biochemistry and biotechnology of plants; sector of ornamental gardening, landscape architecture and plant design.
The material and technical base has a sufficiently developed infrastructure, including modern analytical equipment (sequencer, spectrophotometers, chromatographs, microscopes, devices for electrophoresis and PCR analysis, etc.) for the laboratories of the CBS, a greenhouse complex with an area of 2880 m2, intra. A biotechnological complex for microclonal reproduction of plants with a capacity of up to a million seedlings per year is being built. The commissioning of this facility will significantly speed up the process of introducing new competitive species and varieties of plants into the practice of greening and ornamental gardening.
The bioresource potential of the Center is regularly replenished and updated and as of January 1, 2016, it is 27 collections of live plants in open ground (10,832 samples), 7 collections of protected ground (2,801 samples).
Research is being conducted at the RNPC to identify the mechanisms of woody and herbaceous plant functioning in permanently stressful situations at different levels of biosystem organization with the aim of developing technology for creating sustainable and long-lasting green spaces in urban conditions. The original technologies of microclonal reproduction of varieties of decorative plants and crops of industrial floriculture, which are in demand in landscaping, are gradually being mastered. The phytoncide and physiological properties of the aromatic secretions of plants are being studied, a new methodology for creating specialized summer compositions and phytodesign of interiors is being developed. Great importance is attached to the detection of new types of phytopathogenic organisms in green spaces and greenhouse complexes on the territory of Belarus and the assessment of their harmfulness.
RNPC takes an active part in the creation of a modern research and educational center "Orangery-2" on the territory of the Central Bank of Ukraine. New generation highly decorative and resistant varieties and hybrids of decorative woody, shrubby, floral and spicy-aromatic plants are developed and implemented in green construction. At the request of interested organizations, up to 500,000 seedlings per year of microclonally propagated decorative plants in demand in landscaping and phytodesign of interiors will be produced and sold in the near future. It is planned to regularly hold educational seminars and retraining courses, demonstrate modern landscaping styles, and represent the country at specialized international exhibitions.
Belarusian State University, Belarusian State Technological University, Belarusian State Pedagogical University, Belarusian Agrarian and Technical University will train specialists in the activity profile of the Scientific and Practical Center. It is planned to conduct joint research and scientific and technical development with the university on the problems of green construction and industrial floriculture. For these purposes, the collection funds of the Central Central Bank, as well as the previously created scientific and educational centers and departments of dual subordination, will be widely used.
Potential foreign partners of RNPC in decorative gardening are botanical gardens of the CIS, Baltic States, Abkhazia, Georgia, as well as leading botanical gardens of the USA, Great Britain, and Germany, with which scientific and technical cooperation has already been established and is fruitfully developing. The Council of Botanical Gardens of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was formed. During the implementation of the "Victory Lilac" international project (Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine), lilac varieties with military-themed names were propagated and planted in hero cities.
In order to strengthen the leading positions of botanical gardens as coordinating centers in the study and protection of biodiversity of natural flora, solving the problems of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation for 2011-2020. a series of international scientific seminars with an expedition trip "Strategies and methods of botanical gardens for the preservation and sustainable use of biological diversity of natural flora" in 2013, 2014, 2015 have already been held. (Belarus, Russia, USA, Poland).
In the system of clusters of the National Academy of Sciences, the RNPC of ornamental horticulture is called to unite the scientific and scientific and technical potential of the Department of Biological Sciences, gray institutions of the Department of Chemistry and Earth Sciences, domestic universities.
V.V. Titok, I.K. Valadzko
April 2016
