Feed Crops, Institute of

(full name, V. R. Vil’iams All-Union Research Institute of Feed Crops), organized in 1930 to supersede the State Meadow Institute, which had been established in 1922 through the efforts of V. R. Vil’iams. Located at Lugovaia, Dmitrov Raion, Moscow Oblast, the institute was named after Academician V. R. Vil’iams in 1939.

The institute’s main departments (1972) include hayfields and pastures; geobotanical and agrotechnical studies of grasslands; field feed production; selection of feed crops; plant protection; technology of procuring, preserving, and storing feeds; economics of feed production; mechanization of feed production; and scientific and technical information and coordination. The institute has laboratories for the study of seeds and plant physiology, for biophysical agricultural studies, and for the zootechnical evaluation of feeds.

The institute administers the Moscow (Moscow Oblast) and Morshansk (Tambov Oblast) plant breeding stations, Kirov Meadow-Bog Experiment Station (Kirov Oblast), Dedinovo Experiment Station for Floodplain Meadow Cultivation (Moscow Oblast), Ermolino Experimental Farm (Moscow Oblast), and Diat’kovo Seed Farm (Briansk Oblast). The institute is concerned with the creation of a stable feed supply in the various regions of the USSR. Thirty-one feed crops bred by the institute have been regionally adapted in the USSR. The institute developed the theoretical basis and practical methods for meadow and field feed production and techniques of preparing and storing various feeds, including hay, silage, haylage, and grass meal. The institute has a graduate school and has the right to confer the degrees of doctor of agricultural sciences and candidate of agricultural and biological sciences. It also publishes collections of articles. The institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1972.