The Horticultural Department at NULES of Ukraine was sprung from the Fruit and vegetable-growing Department, framed in 1922 at the Kiev Agricultural Institute. The first head of department was Professor A.A. Piontkovsky. In 1926—1932, it was headed by Professor V.L. Symyrenko (1891—1938), an eminent scientist in horticulture, genetics, pomology, as well a brilliant organizer and pedagogue. He worked out the scientific principles of industrial seedling, developed and implemented the technologies of winter grafting, of rootstock growing (including dwarf), of seed stratification; he grounded a program for gardening development in Ukraine, taking into account varietal characteristics and climatic conditions; he created 20 stations for testing the varieties. The greatest service of V.L. Symyrenko is an organization of national research network to estimate the state of gardening industry, in other words — a system of garden monitoring.

 

In a resolution of All-Ukrainian research and practical conference “The history, modern state and prospect for development of Ukrainian horticulture”, devoted to 120th anniversary of V.L. Symyrenko birthday (23—25 November 2012), a suggestion to name the Horticultural Department after Volodymyr Simirenko, which was made by M.D. Melnychuk, Corresponding Member NAAS of Ukraine, Director of the Institute of Plant Growing, Ecology and Biotechnologies, had taken an unanimous support. It was carried out by order N 37 of the 20 January 2012 signed by Rector of NULES, member of the NAAS of Ukraine D.O. Melnychuk according to decision of the Academic council (transactions N 5 of the 21 December 2011).

Since 1944, the Fruit and vegetable-growing Department was headed by V.M. Markov, O.L. Polishchuk, V.L. Snizhko, G.O. Kabluchko, B.K. Gaponenko, O.Y. Barabash. In 1994, this department was divided into two departments: Vegetable Growing and Horticulture.  The last was headed by M.V. Andriyenko, P.V. Kondratenko, T.E. Kondratenko, I.I. Khomenko, V.T. Gontar, A.M. Sylayeva. Since 2012, the Horticultural Department is headed by P.V. Kondratenko.

The Horticultural Department is a passing-out that. It gives yearly a start in life to 15—20 holders of a master's degree and 20—25 bachelors by speciality “Fruit- and vegetable-growing and viticulture”. There is a post-graduate course by speciality 06.01.07 — fruit growing. In 2012, 8 post-graduates are here.

The main directions in research efforts of the Department are: a creation of new varieties of fruit, berry and low spread cultures; an investigation of their agricultural and biological peculiarities; an elaboration of technologies for their growing. The personnel of Department prepared 6 National standards of growing and reproduction technologies for some cultures, got more than 30 author's certificates on sorts and patents for inventions (authors are: P.Z. Sherengovyy, V.S. Fedorenko, K.D. Kumpan, Y.Y. Andrusyk, V.O. Silenko, V.T. Gontar, N.V. Shevchuk, B.M. Mazur, A.M. Sylayeva). P.Z. Sherengovyy, is an author of more than 80 sorts, 19 of them have entered in the Register of Ukrainian Sorts.

The main educational and scientific research and production base of the chair is a collection nursery fruit crops educational, scientific and industrial laboratory "Test new varieties of plants and environmental technology assessment of growing fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers and ornamental crops" and Separated Subdivisions of NULES Ukraine. Besides base of the chair, with the agreement between NULES Ukraine and IH NAAS of Ukraine, are industrial and experimental plantings of fruit and berry crops Horticulture Institute NAAS of Ukraine. Bachelors, masters and graduate students in these stands do research on the topics of his scientific work, work in the reference library of IH NAAS, which contains all the scientific, industrial, methodical, scientific and popular literature on horticulture.