Ionizing radiation causes the effects of both oppression and activation of biological processes which are widely used in various areas of agriculture, biology and medicine:

• in the pre-sowing treatment of seeds with small doses of gamma-radiation which stimulates the plants productivity;
• to create new perspective mutations used for the selection with the help of radiation mutagenesis;
• in the area of agricultural pest control – insect sterilization;
• to sterilize medical and pharmaceutical products, and food (radiation sterilization).

The calculation, organization and taking part in the experiments on irradiation of biological objects fall into the area of interest of our employees. We have worked out the technique of irradiation of insects and seeds:

• "sharp" irradiation with Bremsstrahlung radiation using the LEA-10 accelerator at the NSC KIPT with the absorbed dose rate from 2 mGy/s;
• "chronic" irradiation with gamma-radiation emitted from a ⁶⁰Со source using the “Etalon” setup with the absorbed dose rate to 1 mGy/h.

The control of the absorbed dose is carried out in several stages:
1. The calculation using GEANT software package which takes into account the geometry of the experiment;
2. “Rough” calculations using the Harwell Red film dosimeters;
3. Additional measurements with the help of thermoluminescent and direct-reading dosimeters (if possible).