Seed
INSTITUTE OF FIELD AND VEGETABLE CROPS IN NOVI SAD
Support to the State and Users
In the next year, this institution of national importance will host two planetary scientific gatherings: the World Sunflower Conference and the World Soybean Conference (which will be the first such soybean gathering held in Europe). By comparison, it is as though Serbia was selected to organize the Olympics in agriculture
In October last year, the Novi Sad Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops marked 80 years of existence. That same year, the Government of Serbia passed a decision by which this institution gained the status of an institute of national importance. The crown of that will be the holding of two world scientific conferences in the next two years, the so-called ”Olympics in Agriculture”, in the organization of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad.
Svetlana Balešević Tubić, Director, points out that the recognition that the Institute has received after eight decades of work brings status, but also the responsibility:
– The Institute’s main objective is to create varieties and hybrids that will be adapted to our growing conditions and will be tolerant to the negative effects of climate changes, such as the emergence of some diseases or pests that have not been typical of this area so far. It is known how important food production 
is. When you have a strong local agricultural institution, then you have the certainty that you will have sufficient quantities of your own healthy and safe food. That is our most important role, and the state has recognized it.
The Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops has created around 1,300 registered varieties and hybrids of agricultural plant species in this region. About 1,100 of them are sold worldwide under the brand ”NS SEME”, which implies a significant role of the Institute in the competitiveness at the international level.
– Everything new that we have developed is aimed at the users of our products, because our main goal is to apply the results in practice – says Balešević Tubić. – The Institute’s varieties are also adapted to conditions of growing outside the borders of Serbia, which shows a great export potential, as well as the fact that the Institute has a wide range of plant species within its research.
REPUTATION, TECHNOLOGIES, INNOVATIONS
The credit for these successes belongs primarily to the researchers of the Institute, experts of high international reputation, who have realized significant cooperation beyond the borders of Serbia. For decades they have been trying to solve many of the problems that have arisen in agriculture. They have created new varieties and hybrids, brought new technologies from abroad, adopted knowledge and applied it here.
– When it comes to new technologies, the conventional soybean enrichment at the Institute is done with the help of molecular markers, or genome selection –director Svetlana Balešević Tubić explains. – This allows the parental components used in the creation of varieties to be selected in a more precise and efficient way, with exactly marked desirable properties. This technique is used in some institutes in Europe only for research purposes and is not 
applied in practice. ... We, at the Institute, have evaluated the method in the field and obtained good results so that we will have a more precise and faster selection, and the new assortment will be much better and more tolerant of the negative consequences of climate changes. With the new technologies and innovations of the assortment, we can safely move forward and create benefits for the state and end users.
Next year, as we have said, will be marked by two major world scientific conferences, important for the Institute, Novi Sad, and the whole country: the World Sunflower Conference and the World Soybean Conference.
The World Soybean Conference is being organized for the first time in Europe, right here in Novi Sad, with 1,300-1,500 participants from around the world. The participants of this conference comprise the whole chain, which includes science, industry, economics, business, and everything is, of course, in the service of science. Scientific conferences cover not only fundamental science, but also include the processing industry and economists, so that the results of the research can be applied in practice, and the science determine in what direction to direct its research.
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Like the Olympics
– The sale of success achieved by the Institute by obtaining the organization of world scientific conferences is also reflected in the fact which agricultural states we have defeated in one of the final votes – says Svetlana Balešević Tubić. Top scientists from the field of soybean research participate in the voting. Argentina, Brazil and Serbia (represented by our Institute) were shortlisted in the running for the host of the soybean conference. In the final vote, we defeated Argentina 9:6. It is as if we were awarded the organization of a kind of Olympics in agriculture, which we proudly emphasize.
