The Institute started to engage in horticultural research studies in 1964 after the full completion of her facilities. The principle objective for which the Institute was founded was “to promote basic and practical research programs on all horticultural crops, i.e., fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and grapevines, to determine the most suitable agrotechnological methods, low inputs and necessary tools for higher yields, to develop productive, healthy, virus-free, disease resistant, horticultural crops that satisfy consumer demands and foreign market needs, to solve problems pertaining to several steps through marketing channels, dispatch healthy stock material to State nurseries and leading growers, to investigate storage potentials of domestic and introduced cultivars by postharvest studies, to search the suitability of various cultivars for processing, to enlighten the needs of horticultural crops for macro and micro elements by leaf, fruit and soil analysis, and to bring into practice of micropropagation for fast and healthy stock multiplication”. Moreover, the Institute is in charge of providing coordination among regional institutions and crop-oriented substations in order to strengthen research activities, establishing collaboration with international institutions and agencies to prepare joint projects and their implementations, to exchange scientist and plant material, arranging and organizing national and international such scientific meetings at technical level as seminars, conferences and symposia.

In 1966 a UNDP project entitled “ Research and Training for the Production, Processing and Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables” was initiated, FAO being the executing agency, and the Institute was designated as the center of the project. Several institutes and sub-stations involved in the project and the Institute shared the major part in coordinating research and training throughout the country. Subsequently, series of externally financed projects namely “Mushrooms Production” which was in effect between 1973-1976, “Greenhouse Vegetable and Flower Production” in execution between the same years and a follow up project, “Development of Flower Production in Turkey” in operation between 1985-1988 not only significantly contributed to the research, production and training programs of the Institute but also helped establish modern laboratories, facilities and other ancillary installations furnished with sophisticated equipments which overall resulted in dissemination of valuable research results to the horticultural subsector. Finally a joint project between the Postharvest Physiology Section of the Institute and Overseas Development Administration (ODA) of England initiated in 1981 and extended to 1985 under the technical collaboration program. More recently, a project on “Development of Stone Fruits” was initiated between the Institute and the Skopje Agricultural Research Institute in Macedonia and the project has been succesfully implemented.

The Institute has been contributing to the research studies in the following nation-wide projects which were planned, programmed and administrated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, General Directorate of Agricultural Research; “Pome Fruits, Stone Fruits, Berries”, “Nuts”, “Vegetables and Ornamentals” , “Olive and Subtropical Fruits”, “Viticulture”, “Natural Resources”, “Pests”, “Plant Diseases” and “Food-Feed Research”. Applied projects prepared under the nation-wide programs are carried out by individual scientists or teams and by one institute or collaboration with others including related faculties of the Universities. They are classified under the headings of evaluation-selection (high yielding, well adapted, disease resistant horticultural cultivars) and breeding, agrotechnology (fertilization, irrigation, protection, physiology etc.), storage, processing and marketing. As of 1964 following its infrastructural completion, the Institute initiated research studies and has published the results of 518 projets under the title “Project Final Reports” and has been closely following their implementations.

In addition to basic and practical research studies as her fundamental function, the Institute has produced several horticultural stock materials and has distributed them to Ministrial institutions and agricultural faculties for research source or as stock. Among those elite and original vegetable and ornamental seeds, grafted and rooted vine crops, various bud and graft sources, rooted cuttings, vegetable, fruit and ornamental nursery stocks. Mushroom mycelium and compost for mushroom production. Furthermore, stock material demands of the private sector, institutions and growers are by any means responded swiftly if the stock is available.

Within the framework of its function, the Institute organizes courses, seminars, conferences, training programs, in-service trainings, new job opportunities and creative workshops regularly every year for agricultural engineers, agricultural technicians, home economists and growers. Moreover, students from agricultural faculties and vocational junior colleges related to horticultural science fulfill their compulsory practical trainings at the Institute every summer. Occasionally the Institute arranges training programs for international students and staff.

The Institute conveys research results through several publications. Working hand with the ministrial institutions, grower organizations and other horticultural sectors, the research results are disseminated through “BAHÇE”; a journal published twice a year, “ANNUAL REPORT”, issued biennially, “RESEARCH NEWS” a technical bulletin circulated bimonthly and untimely published brochures, and books. The Institute has published 84 books and brochures until today.

The Institute represents the public sector and therefore, is open to growers, agricultural institutions and to those who may show interest. The consultation services are rendered free of charge. Moreover, regional problems of economic importance are usually solved in the spot or taken up as separate projects and proposed solutions to the regional problems are followed country-wide.