theory, that every part of the body emits tiny gemmules which migrate to the
gonads and are transferred to offspring. Gemmules were thought to develop into their associated body parts as the offspring matures. The theory implied that changes to the body during an organism's life would be inherited, as proposed in
Lamarckism. Lysenko rejected
Mendelian genetic inheritance theory in favour of his own logic, which he termed "Michurinist genetics". He believed
Gregor Mendel's theory to be too reactionary or idealist. Lysenko's ideas were a mixture of his own, those of Russian agronomist
Ivan Michurin, and of other Soviet scientists. Through this mixture of ideas, Lysenko founded the "Michurinist doctrine". Lysenko believed that in one generation of a
hybridized crop, the desired individual could be selected, mated again and continue to produce the same desired product, not worrying about separation/segregation in future breeds. For that to work, he had to assume that after a lifetime of developing (acquiring) the best set of traits to survive, those were passed down to the next generation. Most scientists believed that Lysenko's ideas were not credible, because they did not truly explain the mechanisms of inheritance. Biologists now consider that his beliefs are pseudo-scientific, with little relationship to genetics. Lysenko claimed that the
cuckoo was born when young birds such as warblers were fed hairy caterpillars by the parent (rather than host) birds; this claim failed to recognise that the cuckoos he described were
brood parasites. Lysenkoites believed that fertilization was not random, but that there was specific selection of the best mate. For reasons like these, Lysenkoism can be viewed as pseudo-scientific. After
World War II ended, Lysenko took an interest in the works of
Olga Lepeshinskaya, an older
feldsher and biologist, who claimed to be able to create cells from egg yolk and non-cellular matter. Lepeshinskaya recognized common ground between her ideas and Lysenko's. By combining both of their ideas it was possible to proclaim that cells could grow from non-cellular material and that the predicted ratios of Mendelian genetics and
meiosis were incorrect, thus undermining the basis of modern
cytology, as well as genetics. Working at the Ganja breeding station, Lysenko was also able to accelerate the development of plants. Based on his experiments, he developed a technique for germinating seeds before sowing at low positive temperatures, which he termed vernalization. However, the mass introduction of vernalization into USSR agriculture ended in failure. The provisions of Lysenko's theory on the staged development of plants, according to critics, were to some extent consistent with the level of knowledge of the 1930s, but not all of them were confirmed experimentally. However, as with vernalization, data was collected using questionnaires, making the results easy to falsify, and any scientific data obtained was never published. When summer planting did not produce any positive results, Lysenko suggested burying the harvested potatoes in trenches, spreading a layer of soil over a layer of potatoes, arguing that this would reduce losses from rotting tubers. However, burying tubers in trenches led to huge crop losses, as the rotting of the tubers only intensified. In 1943, Lysenko stated: Sowing over stover, despite the advantages of the method (snow retention and better temperature conditions for wintering plant seeds in Siberian conditions), was criticized for clogging fields with weeds, since this excludes conventional agricultural technology - surface plowing, which provokes the germination of weeds, and subsequent spring plowing. In the absence of herbicides at that time, this led to clogging of fields. , in a letter to Stalin dated 2 February 1948, noted the low grain yield in stubble crops: Citing negative examples of stover crops, Tsitsin explained positive examples by the fact that "in the harsh conditions of Siberia, there are occasionally exceptionally favorable years." In general, he considered work on stover unpromising, considering instead that work to increase the winter hardiness of grains with wheatgrass-wheat hybrids, distant hybridization with wild plants, and the use of fallows and semi-cultivated fallows were more justified.
Inheritance of acquired traits Fundamental disagreements between Mendelian geneticists and Lysenko concerned the possibility of inheritance of traits that arise during the individual development of organisms, for example, under the influence of environmental factors or during grafting (vegetative hybridization). The idea that such characteristics cannot be inherited is associated with a distorted understanding of the principle formulated by August Weismann, according to which somatic cells cannot transmit information to germ cells. In fact, Weismann admitted the possibility of environmental influence on the substance of heredity. Lysenko himself, at the August 1948 VASKhNIL session, argued the following regarding the inheritance of acquired characteristics: ==Works==