AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE STEPPE AREA OF UKRAINE (FIRST QUARTER OF THE 20TH CENTURY): HISTORICAL AND AGROCLIMATIC FEATURES

The article considers the problem of creating a system of scientific support for the development of agriculture in Ukraine in the first quarter of the last century, taking into account agroclimatic knowledge.Based on the application of problemchronological and comparative-historical methods and analysis, the characteristic features of agro-climatic zoning as one of the main components of the naturalagricultural zoning of the country's territory are revealed.It was established that the accumulation of knowledge about agroclimatic resources in a certain way served as the scientific basis for the organization and formation in the first decades of the 20th century agricultural research.The work of geographers, climatologists, and meteorologists regarding the development of a scientifically based division of the territory according to the agroclimatic conditions of growing agricultural crops in Ukraine in the context of retrospective history is disclosed.The main features of the creation attempt in the first quarter of the 20th century are shown.structures of agricultural research in the Steppe zone of Ukraine according to the regional principle, which provided for the functioning of two regional agricultural research structures in slightly different regions of the Steppe (eastern and western).In the eastern part, agricultural experimentation was carried out by the Dnipropetrovsk Agricultural Research Station with a number of district institutions, and the western part was served by the Odesa Agricultural Research Station, district and specialized research institutions.Accumulated in the first decades of the 20th century.natural science experience contributed to the development of theoretical and methodological foundations for the development of agricultural science and research in Ukraine.