The production of organic spelt wheat in Serbia

Areas used for the production of organic plants have been permanently increasing for many years, both in the world and in Serbia. This type of agricultural production in Serbia was performed in the area of 14,357.96 ha, and the leading role belonged to cereals. Since great attention has been paid to spelt wheat in the production of organic food, the organic system of agricultural production has been distributed over ever larger areas. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to present data on the areas cultivated with this type of cereals in Serbia according to regional distribution in 2012, 2015 and 2016 provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of the Republic of Serbia. Spelt wheat is cultivated on the area of 157.9 ha. The greatest areas are in Vojvodina (120.04 ha), followed by the areas in the south and Eastern Serbia (22.3 ha), Sumadija and western Serbia (14.1 ha), while the smallest production of organic spelt wheat is registered in Belgrade (only 1.5 ha). The varieties Nirvana and Ostro are the only spelt wheat varieties released in Serbia. Since spelt wheat has very good biological and agronomic traits, with the high nutritional and specific functional value of the grain, deserves more attention, particularly for growing within the organic farming system and production.