History and present time of the L.P. Symyrenko Research Station of Pomology of the Institute of Horticulture, NAAS of Ukraine
Authors:   Institute of Horticulture of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, Grynyk I.V. , Filiov V.V. ,   L.P. Symyrenko Research Station of Pomology of the Institute of Horticulture, NAAS of Ukraine
Published: October 2021

The paper is devoted to the centenary of the L.P. Symyrenko Research Station of Pomology foundation. The authors have depicted the main stages of the institution formation and development and elucidated its principal scientific achievements. The history of the station began with the creation of the greatest in Russian Empire nursery farm by the outstanding Ukrainian pomologist Levko Platonovych Symyrenko near Mliiv (the now Cherkasy region). As early as in 1912 the cultivars of different plants numbered almost to 3 thousand here. On November 25, 1920 according to the decision of the Board of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR the Mliiv Horticultural and Truck Gardening Research Station was created on the basis of the above mentioned nursery. Its first director was L.P. Symyrenko’s son Volodymyr Levkovych, who embodied the creative ideas of the great-grandfather, grandfather and father, realized the cause of several generations of the Symyrenkos. He was a real founder of the Ukrainian horticulture, namely: created and developed all the attributes of Ukrainian pomology, systems of research institutions and state nurseries and the State "Pomological Book". V.L. Symyrenko, professors L.M. Ro and V.P. Popov, research worker M.A. Grossheim and others were major organizers of the station. With their direct participation the departments of horticulture, vegetable growing, entomology, agricultural meteorology, phytopathology, technical processing of fruits and small fruits, agrochemistry ets. were founded and functioned by 1927 already. In 1958 the station was named after L.P. Symyrenko. In the April of 1989 on the initiative of its then director M.M. Artemenko and with the support of the scientific collective it was reorganized as the Mliiv L.P. Symyrenko Research Institute of Horticulture of the Lisosteppe of Ukraine, in 1992 in accordance with tho order of the Presidium of the Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences (UAAS) renamed as Mliiv L.P. Symyrenko Institute of Horticulture of UAAS and in 2006 as L.P. Symyrenko Institute of Pomology of UAAS. In 2017 it was reorganized as the L.P. Symyrenko Research Station of Pomology of the Institute of Horticulture of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences (NAAS). Today, it is one of the leading scientific institutions of the NAAS system in the horticultural branch. The scientific and research works are carried out in conformity with the four scientific and technical programmes of NAAS: “Genetical Resources of Plants”, “Horticulture and Small-Fruit Growing”, “Plant Protection” and “Agrarian Economics”. The main direction of the institution research activity is the elaboration of the scientific basis of the preservation and spread of the genetic versatility of the fruit, small fruit, nuciferous and minor crops. At present more than 3,000 varieties of fruit, small fruit, nuciferous and ornamental crops are studied in the collectional plantations. That is the valuable genetic fund of Ukraine. Today 72 varieties bred by the Mliiv Research Station have been entered into the State Register of the Plant Cultivars Favourable for the Spread in Ukraine.