Agronomy

Agronomy or agricultural sciences (агрономія; ahronomiia). The scientific foundations of agricultural production, the sum of theoretical and practical knowledge about the cultivation of plants, the raising of animals, the organization of production, and the primary processing of farm products. Agronomic knowledge has accumulated through the history of human activity: in Ukraine since the period of the Trypillia culture. Practical knowledge on farming has been passed on in the form of technical prescriptions and advice. Agronomic information appears in the earliest written sources of Kyivan Rus’. The scientific principles of farming were first worked out at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. At the same time agronomy began to be divided into a number of independent sciences.

The earliest scientific research in agronomy in Ukraine was done by individual scholars such as Vasyl Karazyn, who worked mostly in the Kharkiv region, and by the Nikita Botanical Garden in the Crimea. Agronomy developed rapidly in Ukraine at the turn of the 19th century and was closely tied to the development of sugar-beet farming and the orgnaization of a network of agricultural research stations by the gubernia and county zemstvos. On the eve of the First World War there were 52 experimental fields and stations and 8 seed stations in Ukraine. An important contribution to agronomy was made by the Poltava Experimental Field, which was established in 1884, and the Poltava Agricultural Research Station, which grew out of the former institution in 1910.

The methods of tilling and fertilization that were developed at these stations were adopted as the foundations of farming at the time and, along with the classification of fallow land, constituted an important advancement in agriculture. Other experimental fields and research stations were located in Nosivka, Uman, Kharkiv, Drabiv, Chartoryisk, Sarny, Nemerche, Kherson, Katerynoslav, and Odesa. Furthermore, there were two networks of experimental fields with headquarters in Kyiv: the All-Russian Society of Sugar Producers and the Kyiv Agricultural Society. In 1914 there were over 100 agricultural scientific research institutions in the nine Ukrainian gubernias of the Russian Empire. Two other societies in Ukraine were interested in agronomic research—the Imperial Free Economic Society, founded in 1765, and the Imperial Society of Agriculture of Southern Russia, which was founded in 1828 and was active in Bessarabia, Katerynoslav gubernia, Tavriia gubernia, and Kherson gubernia. There were also some gubernia agricultural societies, such as the Kyiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kherson societies (some of them organized agricultural exhibitions, conducted elementary courses on farming), and county or local societies (1,020 of these by 1915, the largest number of which were in Poltava gubernia). After the Revolution of 1917 these societies, as well as the All-Ukrainian Seed Society and the Ukrainian Central Agricultural Society in Kyiv (reorganized in 1918 into the Central Ukrainian Agricultural Co-operative Union), which were active in the revolutionary period, were dissloved. Agronomy was studied at Kyiv University, Kharkiv University, and Odesa University, at Kyiv Polytechnical Institute, and at Kharkiv Veterinary Institute. In Western Ukraine agronomy was taught at the higher agricultural school in Dubliany (founded in 1856, reorganized into an academy in 1900, and then into the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry of the Lviv Polytechnical Institute in 1919) and at the Veterinary Academy in Lviv.

Important contributions to agronomy were made at the turn of the century by the following scientists in Ukraine: Anastasii Zaikevych (a pioneer in sugar-beet research), A. Izmailsky (drought research in southern Ukraine), Lev Symyrenko (orchard growing), Serhii Vynohradsky (soil microbiology), B. Rozhestvensky (agronomy professor at Kyiv University), Serhii Bohdanov (classification of ground waters), Vasilii Dokuchaev (chernozem, genesis of the steppe), Kostiantyn Gedroits (earth scientist), V. Kolkunov, S. Kulzhynsky (legume cultures and their effect on soil fertility), and Andrii Sapiehin and Aleksandr Dushechkin (sugar-beet nourishment).

Ukrainian agronomy advanced rapidly in the 1918–29 period prior to collectivization. The Soviet government recognized the necessity to revitalize farming quickly, and Ukrainian researchers took advantage of the ample opportunities for scientific research. In this period planning was introduced into the various branches of agronomic research. A network of meteorological stations was established. Soil research culminated in the 1920s in the first synthetic map of the soils of Ukraine by Hryhorii Makhiv and 10 volumes of Materiialy doslidzhennia gruntiv Ukraïny (Research Materials on the Soils of Ukraine). Ukrainian selection specialists produced a number of valuable agricultural plant varieties. The scientific research stations, which by 1927 numbered 35, were governed by a single plan. Several nature reserves were organized: the Askaniia-Nova Nature Reserve and the virgin steppe of the Starobilsk region and of the Azov coast. The problem of drought in southern Ukraine and the assimilation of many new cultures received considerable attention. The development of agronomy was encouraged by the second division of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the Agricultural Scientific Committee of Ukraine, which issued a number of valuable publications, and, after its dissolution, by the All-Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and by the scientific research stations, some of which published reports. The association Silskyi Hospodar in Lviv was active in practical agronomy and also made some theoretical contributions. It published over 180 books and pamphlets and farmers’ newspapers. Outside Ukraine agronomy was studied at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady, Czechoslovakia.

In the second half of the 1920s Ukrainian scholars in Soviet Ukraine began to be politically persecuted. The work of agricultural scientific research institutions continued to be reorganized as the collectivization of farming began. Beginning in 1929, agronomic research institutes in Ukraine were subordinated to the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow, first through the All-Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and then directly. Scientific research focused on such practical tasks as producing new varieties of plants, controlling pests and weeds, planting shelterbelts, counteracting drought, increasing crop yields, and acclimatizing and promoting crops new to Ukraine, such as cotton, tea, and citrus fruits. The Communist Party’s strict, centralized control over research ruled out any possibility of free development for agronomy.

In 1945–6 the division of agricultural sciences under the chairmanchip of Mykola Hryshko was established at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1956 this division was reorganized into the Ukrainian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which consisted of 5 departments, 21 scientific research institutes, a large network of research stations, and a central agricultural library. The academy published its Dopovidi and Visnyk sil's'koho-spodars'koï nauky. In 1962 the academy was dissolved, and its scientific research institutes were transferred to the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow. Some agronomic research was conducted at the biology departments of universities and at the higher agricultural schools.

At the end of the Soviet period agronomic research in Ukraine was concentrated on developing new varieties of highly productive agricultural crops. Vasyl Yuriev, Fedir Kyrychenko, and Vasyl Remeslo produced many valuable varieties of winter and spring wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other grains. P. Harkavy developed varieties of winter and spring barley that were suited to southern Ukraine and Moldavia. V. Kozubenko, Borys Sokolov, P. Kliuchko, Oleksander Musiiko, and others developed highly productive corn hybrids and varieties with sterile seed. A monospermous sugar beet was produced by O. Kolomiiets, Volodymyr Zosymovych, M. Bordonos, H. Mokan, Ivan Buzanov, and others. Many highly productive varieties of grain, legume, oil-bearing, essential-oil-bearing, fiber, feed, vegetable, and melon cultures, as well as potato, were developed. Serhii Melnyk, H. Borovykov, and others developed the theoretical principles of grapevine grafting. The problems of seed science and agricultural ecology were investigated by Mykola Kuleshov. Tymofii Strakhov, F. Nemiienko, V. Peresypkin, V. Vasyliev, D. Rudniak, M. Helent, and others were developing and improving biological and chemical methods for controlling agricultural plant diseases and pests.

(See also Agricultural education, Agricultural organizations, Agricultural periodicals, Agricultural scientific research institutions, Agricultural technology, Agronomy, state and social, Forestry, Selection, and Zootechny.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iur'iev, V. Zahal'na selektsiia i nasinnytstvo pol'ovykh kul'tur (Kyiv 1952)
Doroshenko, P. ‘Dosiahnennia sil's'koho hospodarstva Ukraïny za 30 rr. radians'koï vlady,’ Visnyk sil's'kohospodars'koï nauky, 1967, no. 10
Pal'chevs'kyi, V.; et al. Osnovy ahronomiï (Kyiv 1973)
Rudenko, I. Osnovy ahronomiï (Kyiv 1977)

Edvard Zharsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]