Grain Farming Institute

(VNIIZKh; full name, All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Grain Farming), an institute organized in 1956 on the basis of the Shortandy Agricultural Experimental Station in Tselinograd Oblast. Until February 1961 it was called the Kazakh Scientific Research Institute of Grain Farming. As of 1970, the Grain Farming Institute had the following divisions: farming, soil science, agrochemistry and fertilizers, plant breeding and genetics, seed-raising, feed production, economics, mechanization of agriculture, agricultural and forest land improvements, orchard farming, plant protection, and agricultural information. In addition it has 30 laboratories, including four that do original research. The institute’s experimental farm has 60,800 hectares of land, including 47,000 hectares of arable land. Each year more than 30,000 hectares is planted in grain crops. The institute is developing a farming system for the virgin land regions of Kazakhstan and the arid regions of Siberia. The institute worked out a system of farming based on soil cultivation without a moldboard; under this system the stubble is preserved, as a means of combating erosion. It has graduate study in residence and by extension. Since 1961 it has published a scholarly journal, Trudy. In 1967 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.