Kharkiv National Agricultural University named after V. V. Dokuchayev

The history of Kharkiv National Agrarian University named after V.V.Dokuchajev is closely connected with the formation and development history of agriculture and forestry in our country during almost two centuries. On the 5 th of October 1816 the Edict of Russian emperor Alexander the First concerning formation of the Land Farming Institute in Marimont near Warsaw was issued. Later it was called Marimont Agriculture and Forestry Institute. In 1914 it was transfered to Kharkiv and in 1921 it was renamed Agricultural Institute.

In 1991 the institute became Kharkiv State Agrarian University named after V.V.Dokuchajev and in March 2002 the university received national status.
Today the agrarian university is a modern educational, scientific, and industrial complex which includes six scientific and research establishments, 15 colleges and technical secondary schools and three state organizations. It has broad connections with agricultural production of Ukraine. It is well known abroad and since 1997 the university has been a member of International University association in Paris (UNESKO, PARIS).

At the university 3349 bachelors specialists, masters study at six departments. The carriculum consists of ten specialities (day and correspondence forms of education).
- "Agrochemistry and soil science";
- "Agronomy" on specialities Seedscience and "Seed-growing";
- "Fruit and vegetable growing and grapes-growing";
- "Selection and genetics of agricultural crops";
- "Plant protection" in specialities;
- "Phytosanitary monitoring" and "Forest pathology";
- "Accouting and audit"; "Organization management"; "Enterprise economics";
- "Land organization and cadastr";
- "Forestry farming".

The university has trained nearly 46 thousand highly qualified agrarian specialists including 1477 Masters of agricultural sciences and more than 100 Doctors of Phylosophy or 76 countries of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

At 32 chairs specialists are trained by 346 teachers including 40 Doctors of Phylosophy, professors, 159 Candidates of sciences.
The university has two specialized scientific councils for defense of Doctor and Candidate theses, post-graduate course in 13 specialities, Doctor courses with two directions. During the existence of the postgraduate courses it was trained 760 Candidates and Doctors of science, including 13 Candidate and 2 Doctor theses defended in 2001-2002.

Structural units of the University are: the Institute of after - diploma education, the Institute of phytosanitarian monitoring, the fundamental library with the collection of 600 thousand samples of books, the editor-publishing department, three scientific and research laboratories, Internet system of connection, the dendropark (22,3 ha), two experimental fields (170 ha), two experimental-training farms with area 11425 ha, the Veterans park (6,5 ha).

The Agrarian University is a separate town (70,8 ha) with seven buildings (45259 sq.m) where students have their classes.
The students have seven modern hostels, a library with eight reading-rooms for 400 places, a pavilion with agricultural machinery, four gymnasiums, a conference hall for 900 places, a sports-recreation camp "Berizka" in the forest reserve of the experimental-training forest farm of the university.

Scientific research in the University is held according to such main directions: zone resourse saving soil protective systems of farming; technology of fertility restoring and soil protection; genetics, crop breeding and seed growing, plant protection, plant growing production technology; organizational economic procedure of farming and improving land relations in rural area.

New variaties of kidney beans Pervomayska, Dokuchajevska, Ziron'ka; amarants - Ultra, Kharkivkiy 1, Sem; barley - Dokuchajevskij 15, Dokuchajevskij 18, were developed as a result of scientific research.

The university scientists gave bases and developed ways of control with soil percolation while building irrigation canals and reservoirs, cultivation and chemical reclamation of solonetz soils, sorbation-gas method of chemical treatment of grain and industrial plant seeds. They gave theoretical and practical foundation of nonroot plant feecling.

Soil scientists of the university have investigated the soil cover of Ukraine. Due to this investigation the state got a huge information bank about soils, their agro-productive characteristics, increase of their yielding capacity, geography, etc. It serves as the basis for carrying out modern land reform using market relations and private ownership of land, as well as the fulfillment of natural resources.

Cadastr of forest types of lowland territory of Ukraine has been elaborated. It has become a scientific base for the further development of forest production and theoretical base for studying natural growth and development of forest ecosystems. It is foreseen to fulfil soil typological mapping of forest fund lands and transferring land farming to a typological base.

To order of Ukraininan Agrarian policy Ministry, economists have developed and introduced into agriformation of Ukraine a system of business planning, new plans of accounts and bookeeper's automatic place of work (APW).

As a result of cooperation of open corporation "Kharkiv Tractor Plant" with the Agrarian University the following technologies have been developed and now are introducing into production on the base of new models of tractors of Kh TP:
- rut technology of weeded crops growing;
- energy saving ecological technology of grain and groats crops growing;
- a system of main soil cultivation to different depth;
- agricultural machinery that is not worse and in some cases are even better in work than machinary of foreign films.

To raise the effectiveness of introducing into the production new techniques and technology and also for processing of new organizing forms of machine and tractors park using, the plant together with the University has created three experimental machine and tractor stations which work on 10000 ha of arable land.