Russia: Seed potato producer Molyanov Agro Group becomes partner of POTATOES NEWS

Molyanov Agro Group (MAG), a seed potato producer from Kinel in Russia’s Samara region, has become an official partner of POTATOES NEWS and the International Potato Tour. The agreement comes just over two weeks before the company marks its tenth anniversary on October 13, 2026.

Under the partnership, the tour’s crew will film MAG’s seed fields, laboratory and greenhouse complex for its video reports, and a company specialist will join an episode of the POTATO 2.0 podcast. The material will run on potatoes.news and the project’s social media channels.

MAG was founded in 2016 and is led by General Director Vladimir Molyanov, a member of the Council of the Potato Union of Russia and chairman of the Union of Samara Potato Growers. The company produces elite seed of Russian varieties and of foreign varieties under licence, on its own land and at 11 partner farms. According to its website, seed is grown in the Samara, Ulyanovsk and Leningrad regions and in the republics of Tatarstan and Mari El.

The team is older than the company. Its history starts with a regional potato programme launched by the Samara governor in 1991, when German varieties and growing technology were brought into the region. In 1995 a seed company was set up together with German breeders in the village of Lunacharsky on the Volga, where Dr H.J. Boehmig and Vladimir Molyanov adapted European seed production practice to local conditions. Two farms founded in 2003 in Starogankino and Chernovsky began multiplying seed of Russian and foreign varieties. Both are now part of the MAG group.

The company’s own variety breeding came later.

Since 2018 MAG has run a joint breeding programme with the Federal Potato Research Centre named after A.G. Lorkh and with Bavaria-Saat, a breeding company from Germany. The work is now part of a project on potato breeding and seed production in the Samara region under Russia’s Federal Scientific and Technical Programme for Agricultural Development 2017–2030. Three varieties have been registered: Julia, Alva and Gelia. The company grows them for seed alongside the Russian-bred Grand and Gulliver.

Earlier, in 2020, the varieties Krone, Sanyava and Rainbow entered Russia’s State Register of Breeding Achievements after trials. MAG is the authorised representative of the French company Comptoir du Plant for Rainbow.

The pipeline leans towards processing. Fraya, a French fry variety, is in its second year of trials. Simona and Lucy, both chip varieties, are in their first. Taira, a variety with red skin, and a table variety still known by its number are being prepared for Russia’s state variety testing. No trial results have been published.

Clean starting material is the core of the business. MAG has built a breeding laboratory and a complex of five greenhouses that can produce more than 50,000 disease-free minitubers in two growing cycles a year. The laboratory produces original super-elite seed from plants grown in test tubes, and in 2020 the company received Russian patent No. 2717999 for a method of producing microplants in the field.

The logic is simple. Every season a seed lot spends in the field gives aphids another chance to bring in viruses such as potato virus Y, so each extra generation between the test tube and the grower’s field lowers seed health. Starting each cycle from fresh minitubers, and multiplying them in areas where few aphids carry viruses, keeps that chain short.

MAG is also the official Russian distributor of Genta, a Turkish crop nutrition company based in Izmir. On its website MAG says the Genta range, which includes micronutrient mixes and NPK formulations used on potatoes, is at the final stage of Russian registration.

“Over ten years we have gone from the first deliveries of certified seed to our own breeding, laboratory and greenhouse complex. Our task is to supply growers with high-quality elite seed potatoes and to strengthen food security and the export potential of the region,” says Vladimir Molyanov, General Director of Molyanov Agro Group.

Source: Molyanov Agro Group press release; molianov.ru

Photos: Molyanov Agro Group