I.I. Mechnykov carried out the fundamental research in the field of microbiological
method for controlling scarab beetles. Subsequently, the results of these studies became
the basis for the development of microbiological protection of plants from harmful
organisms. The significant contribution to the entomological science at that time was
made by the first provincial entomologists S.O. Mokrzhetskyi (the Crimea),
І.К. Pachoskyi (Kherson), and P.A. Zabarynskyi (Odessa).
In 1878 the first Zemstvo entomological commission was created in Kharkiv and
the second such commission was created in Odessa. Their task was to observe the
plants pests and develop the measures to protect crops from them. In the period from
1881 to 1890 there were nine congresses of the commissions. The main attention was
paid to the cereals pests and the commission in Odessa also examined the phylloxera.
During this period the well-known scientists, the professors from Novorossiisk
(Odessa) University O.A. Kovalevskyi and I.I. Mechnykov, the entomologists
I.M. Vihdalm and P. Zabarynskyi were the members of the commission. In 1894 as a
part of the Academic Committee of the Department of Agriculture, the first state
institution on plant protection against pests was created in Russia. It was called the
Bureau of Entomology and headed by J.A. Porchynskyi [13, 16].
At the end of the XIXth century the provincial Zemstvo councils formed the
entomological bureaus which were governed by the provincial Zemstvo entomologists
and the entomological commissions ceased their activity. In Ukraine the significant
work on plant protection was carried out by three such bureaus as Tavriiske (the
entomologist S.O. Mokrzhetskyi from 1893), Khersonske (the entomologist
J.K. Pachoskyi from 1897), and Kharkivske (the entomologist I.V. Yemelianov from
1905 and V.G. Averin from 1913). They observed the appearance and spreading of the
pests, and studied the measures of protection against them. The Tavriiske bureau
specialized in the garden pests and Khersonske and Kharkivske ones concentrated their
activity in the grain crops pests.
Besides the insects, at the end of the XIXth century the study of harmful mites and
nematodes, which significantly damaged agricultural crops, began in Ukraine.
V.A. Skorobyshevskyi made the first studies of the mites in the Crimea Nikitskyi Botanical
Garden in the 1890s. In 1898 I.K. Tarnani informed about the existence of a root-knot
nematode near Uman. Later there were found a sugar beet nematode near Kaniv, a potato
stem nematode in Kyiv and Volyn regions, a seed gall nematode near Kerch and a hop cyst
nematode in the Kyiv Botanical garden [13, 16].
During a long period weevils, webworm beetles, winter moths and other pests
were a big disaster for the Ukrainian beetroot growers. According to the estimated
calculations made by S.O. Mokrzhetskyi, the losses incurred only by the beetroot
weevils in the late 90s of the nineteenth century, each year averaged 969 thousand
rubles in gold, not taking into an account 500 thousand rubles, the cost of sugar beet
- 1285 -