General Farming and Crop Production

Profession

The first steps in agriculture and crop production were many millennia ago, when people were still engaged in hunting and gathering. Over time, the need to produce food ourselves became stronger. And today, a specialist in general farming and crop production is one of the most sought-after professions in agriculture, as the problem of irrational use of land resources, as well as food shortages, is becoming more acute every year.
The field of professional activity of graduates is the solution of complex problems in agriculture: development of scientific principles and methods for regulating soil processes, development of rational technologies for tillage and crop cultivation, search for ways to regulate soil fertility, scientific foundations, methods and systems of mechanical, biological, chemical integrated weed control, development of effective technologies for cultivation, harvesting crops and primary processing of products, development of agrotechnical methods for improving quality of crop products, theoretical and practical foundations for programming high yields and varietal agricultural technology.

Educational Process

The features of the program include the modular principle and the use of elements of e-learning and distance learning technologies.
The specificity of curricula based on the modular principle is that the program consists of relatively independent parts that form a certain competence or group of competences in the course of mastering an academic discipline or a set of disciplines united by interdisciplinary links. In addition, when teaching graduate students with disabilities, e-learning and distance learning technologies are possible.
The postgraduate program consists of the following blocks:
— Block 1, “Disciplines (modules)”, includes disciplines (modules) related to mandatory courses (“Foreign Language”, “History and Philosophy of Science”, “Research Methodology”, “Higher Education Pedagogy”, “Experiment Planning in agronomy”), and disciplines (modules) related to optional courses (“Foreign language”, “Biotechnological research methods”, “Growth control based on automated systems in crop production”, “Precision farming”);
— Block 2, “Internships”, refers to the variable part of the program;
— Block 3, “Research work”, refers to the variable part of the program;
— Block 4, “State final certification”, refers to the basic part of the program and ends with the qualification “Researcher. Lecturer-researcher.

Practice

Postgraduate students of the direction “Agriculture”, profile “General agriculture and crop production” have the opportunity to do research practice in the following research institutes and organizations:
— Federal Center for Vegetable Growing,
— All-Russian Research Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants,
— Nemchinovka Federal Research Center,
— All-Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology,
— Russian Potato Research Center,
— Precaspian Agrarian Federal Scientific Center of the RAS,
— various agricultural holdings,
— Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute,
as well as to train and carry out scientific activities in foreign research organizations.

Career

After the graduation, postgraduate student gets the qualification of a researcher, teacher-researcher.
In case of successful completion of the program, the graduate can conduct teaching activities in higher educational institutions.
In the process of studying, a postgraduate student also acquires all the necessary skills for independent research activities, so postgraduate graduates can build a career in research organizations, large Russian and foreign companies.
The objects of professional activity are the soil cover of agricultural lands, flow technologies, architectonics of crops, models of energy and mass transfer in “soil-plant-atmosphere” system, mineral fertilizing of plants, methods of plant propagation in vitro, biopesticides, agricultural landscapes, hayfields and pastures, soils and their fertility, crop production technologies; crops, plantations of fruit, vegetables, medicinal, ornamental crops and grapes.