MORPHOLOGICAL AND PRODUCTIVE TRAITS OF SPELT WHEAT - Triticum Spelta L.

Spelt [Triticum spelta (L.)] is a wheat species that is becoming increasingly popular in the production of safe food, and also due to rising possibilities for ecological farming of this alternative crop.Two-year research on possibilities of growing spelt was carried out during 2011 and 2012, on the experimental field of the Institute of Agriculture in Banja Luka (Republic of Srpska).The subject-matter of the research was two spelt cultivars: Hungarian cultivar Ekö-10 and Serbian Novi Sad cultivar Nirvana.The trials were set up in the form of a randomised block design with three repetitions.The trials investigated the following morphological and productive traits: plant height, spike length and 1000-grain weight.The results show that the cultivars have a large genetic potential.Statistically, Nirvana had significantly higher plants (150.66 cm), longer spikes (8.37 cm) and higher1000-grain weight (46.39 g) than cultivar Ekö-10 that had lower values in the both years of research.Identifying correlations enabled better understanding of interrelations among the traits and their balancing, in order to increase yield per unit area.The conditions of the trial site were proved favourable for growing spelt.