Leader Kim Jong Il visited the Institute in March Juche 100 (2011), and it was rebuilt on an expansion basis in a short span of time according to his onsite instruction.

The total plottage of the Institute grew nearly thrice, the area of hydroponic hothouses twice, the area of vinyl sheet-roofed hothouses 6 times and the vegetable output 3.4 times as compared with last year.

The Institute has hydroponic hothouses based on computer control system, several hundred blocks of non-heating vinyl sheet-roofed hothouses, bioengineering room and other research and experimental cultivation bases.

Particularly, the hydroponic hothouses are on the world level in size and outfit.

A combined control system by way of PLC runs the nutrient solution supply system, which monitors and regulates the amount and pH of solution in real time, and the system of controlling such environmental factors as temperature, humidity and sunshine.

The bioengineering room and other research rooms are equipped with advanced equipment and technical means, including high-pressure sterilizer and ultraviolet analyzer.

The Institute specializes in vegetable research, production and sale.

Recently touring the Institute, Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of the DPRK, expressed great satisfaction over its size and scientific standard.

Over the last one year the Institute has made radical progress in establishing the method of producing vegetable seeds.

While positively applying advanced bio-technologies, it collected several hundred varieties of scores of kinds of vegetables and made researches into them.

In the course the Institute developed various strains of vegetables such as greenhouse round-shaped eggplant to be registered as patent and established the technique of cultivating tens of kinds of pollution-free vegetables and a new cultivation method that makes it possible to raise the per-hectare yield at vinyl sheet-roofed hothouse by more than 150 tonnes.

Its researchers also authored and disseminated various books of academic and practical value including "Practical Technology for Vegetable Cultivation".

At present the Institute is cultivating various kinds of vegetables good for health.

Ryang Min Ho, chief of the cultivation research section of the Institute, told KCNA that the Institute would soon begin to cultivate 50 odd newly-bred varieties of vegetables, including cucumber, radish and tomato.