The aim of the study is to analyze the role and significance of agricultural societies in the development of hop growing and tobacco cultivation in the Ukrainian provinces at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, particularly the initiation of research activities in these sectors.

It has been established that by the beginning of the 20th century Volhynia had become the center of industrial hop production in the Russian Empire, securing strong positions in the European market due to the high quality of its raw materials and low production costs. The popularization of Volhynian hops on the global market, the expansion of cultivation areas in the region, and the implementation of numerous experiments on hop cultivation were facilitated, among other factors, by the activities of hop-growing societies. At the beginning of the 20th century, such societies were established in cities of the Volhynian province, including Zhytomyr, Dubno, Lutsk, Rivne, and others. In a relatively short period, these societies significantly improved the quality, techniques, and cultivation culture of hop growing in the region, supplying virtually all breweries of the Russian Empire with high-quality raw materials. The active work of these societies also contributed to improving the quality of hop products intended for export, which reached its greatest scale in the 1920s.

It has been demonstrated that a significant contribution to the development of the industry, including the establishment of its research component, was made by the Volhynian Hop-Growing Society. At its initiative, an experimental hop garden was established where, under the supervision of agronomist I. I. Zasukhin, the main agrotechnical methods of hop cultivation were studied from the beginning of the 20th century. Experiments were also conducted there on plant breeding and pest protection. It was on the basis of this hop garden that the Volhynian Experimental Station was established in the 1920s, which in the 1930s was transformed into the Zhytomyr Scientific Research Breeding Station for Hop Growing.

The contribution of several research institutions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the scientific support of the tobacco industry has also been outlined. These include the Yalta Experimental Tobacco Plantation in the Taurida province, the Pochep Experimental Tobacco Plantation and the Nosivka Experimental Field in the Chernihiv province, and the Lokhvytsia Experimental Field with an experimental tobacco plantation in the Poltava province. Thanks to the organizational and research activities of the Lokhvytsia field and plantation, as well as the scientific and experimental work of the heads of these institutions – P. Lomonosov, H. Malets, Z. Vasilyev and others – rational methods of tobacco cultivation were identified and developed. These methods aimed to reduce production costs, determine conditions for the application of mineral fertilizers for tobacco, and develop ways to combat pests affecting this crop.

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