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Many cultivars of cabbage are grown in Serbia, but two local cultivars, 'Futoski' and 'Srpski melez', predominate the cabbage production in Central Serbia and the Vojvodina Province. Their advantage over the introduced cultivars is that they are better suited to the local taste and methods of use (pickling of whole heads or sauerkraut, preparation of traditional local dishes and fresh consumption). It should be noted that local cabbage populations are widely grown in remote parts of Serbia. A recently completed SEED-Net Project was aimed at collecting local cabbage populations on the territory of Serbia. Populations were collected in the locations of Boljevac, Curug, Deronje, Donji Katun (Varvarin), Futog, Taras (Elemir), Leskovac. The sources of collected materials were mostly local markets, home gardens and home stores in isolated villages, where old farmers still maintain land races of various brassicas in small quantities and for domestic use. These cabbages have juicier and thinner leaves, which predisposes their heads for fine grating and also makes them pliable and easy to roll up during food preparation. It is characteristics like these that give the local populations an advantage over hybrids. The climatic and soil characteristics in the typical and traditional production area favor the production of late cabbage cultivars. Fresh cabbage from Vojvodina production area is a good raw material for fresh use and biological fermentation. The winter cabbage is suitable for biofermentation and long storage in the form of sauerkraut. The fermented 'Futoski' cabbage has been certified at one point as a product with geographic origin.

Garlic is a species whose utilization is based on its nutritive values and medicinal properties. The secondary center of this crop's origin is the Mediterranean, which is where the earliest written records of garlic use and cultivation come from as well. Serbian garlic production is characterized by the use of local ecotypes and significant acreages and low yields of the crop. The Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad has managed to collect a large number of garlic ecotypes, which represent a significant body of genetic resources. Determination of the breeding value for a given trait requires not only a continual collection of genotypes but their characterization and evaluation as well. The present paper describes the results of a 7-year piece of research studying yield components and quality in 18 fall garlic genotypes (13 ecotypes and 5 clones). Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to find similarities and differences among the genotypes, while the interaction between the genotypes and traits was depicted on a biplot. Genotypes from the first group had the largest-sized bulbs, as indicated by their position on the biplot. The genotypes P-2 and K-8/23 had negative values of object coordinates for all the traits under study and were placed in the group with the lowest bulb weight and dry matter yield in the dendrogram. The second group was the most numerous one. The distance of the genotypes from this group from the origin of the biplot was indicative of their distance in the dendrogram as well.

The efficiency and selectiveness of the herbicides pendimethalin (1.32 kg/ha), linuron (0.75 and 0.8 kg/ha), fluorochloridone (0.5 kg/ha), trifluralin (0.96 kg/ha), metolachlor (1.2 kg/ha), alachlor (1.44 kg/ha), prometryn (1 kg/ha), metribuzin (0.35 kg/ha) and their combinations were studied in carrot crop in 1993. and 1994. We evaluated the efficiency of the herbicides in weed control and their effect on the crop (phytotoxicity, yield, length and diameter of the root, diameter of the root core and plant height). The dominant weed species in 1993 were Galinsoga parviflora, Sinapis arvensis, Chenopodium album and Hibiscus trionum, and in 1994 Galinsoga parviflora, Datura stramonium, Amaranthus retroflexus and Chenopodium hybridum. The studied herbicides and their combinations showed to be highly efficient with respect to the dominant weed species. Metribuzin showed to be poorly efficient in control of Galinsoga parviflora (75 - 76%) and Solanum nigrum (72.5 - 83.5%). Fluorochloridone showed to be poorly efficient in control of Datura stramonium (55%) and Hibiscus trionum (67.5 - 80.5%). Linuron, metribuzin and fluorochloridone caused temporary phytotoxicity while only metribuzin significantly reduced the yield, length, diameter of the root and diameter of the core of the carrot plants.

Due to an increased production of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), more and more attention is being paid to factors affecting its yield. One of the most important factors is the finding of the best substrate for each individual strain. In 1992 and 1993, at the Vegetables Department of the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad, several substrates were studied under laboratory conditions in order to determine the most suitable one for strain NS-16 in terms of incubation and fructification. The substrates included: wheat straw, soybean straw, maize stalks, sunflower husks, wheat straw + sunflower husks, soybean straw + sunflower husks and maize stalks + sunflower husks. Incubation on combination substrates was one to two days shorter than on pure substrates. The highest yield - 21.48% - was achieved using a soybean straw substrate and the lowest -16.04% - with a sunflower husk one. Wheat straw + sunflower husks and maize stalks + sunflower husks gave 8% higher yields than pure substrates.