Zhdanov, Leonid

Born Apr. 17 (29), 1890, in the village of Makhindzhauri, in present-day Khelvachauri Raion, Adzhar ASSR, Georgian SSR. Soviet scientist and plant breeder. Academician of the V. I. Lenin Ail-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1948). Hero of Socialist Labor (1965).

Zhdanov graduated from Moscow University in 1914 and the Moscow Agricultural Institute in 1917. He was a consultant to and director of the sunflower breeding group at the Don Experimental and Breeding Station of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Oil-producing Plants (from 1924). The group directed by Zhdanov was the first in the USSR to breed high-yielding, broomrape-resistant sunflower varieties (8281, 6432, and others), which were acclimatized during a 20-year period. The group also bred the new highoil-yielding, broomrape-resistant Maiak sunflower variety (the achenes contain 49–51 percent oil), which was acclimatized in 1963. Zhdanov is also taking part in the effort to breed sunflower varieties with an even higher oil content (53–54 percent) as well as varieties with group immunity to broomrape, rust, downy mildew, and sunflower moth. Zhdanov has also bred highly productive varieties of castor-oil plant, oil flax, Lallemantia, sesame, safflower, and falseflax. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941 and was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, four other orders, medals, and four gold medals of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and the Exhibition of the Achievements of the National Economy of the USSR.