About wheat grown in Croatia

China is the world’s largest wheat producer and consumer. With the total wheat production of 112 million tones in 2008, on 23.6 million hectares, and the average grain yield of 4.8 t/ha. (Zhong-hu He) It is about 16% of the total world wheat productions. Winter wheat accounts for about 94 percent of China’s total wheat output.

In Croatia. as in China – in the period 1950 – 1970 the Italian common winter wheat cultivars: Mentana (chinese name Nanda 2419 – grown on 4.7 millions ha),  Abbondanza, Funo, Mara, San Pastore, Produtore and Libellula played an important role in wheat production and improvement. In the 1970′s the Russian cvs. Bezostaia and Kavkaz were introduced. This means that Croatian wheat cultivars could be well adapted and grown successfully in some Chinese regions in which the mentioned Italian cultivars were grown (the Yellow, Huai and Hai Rivers and Yangtze Valleys, as Sichuan, Qianghai and Guizhou province).

The new period of breeding domestic cultivars began in 1971 with the first Croatian high yielding semi dwarf cultivar Zlatna Dolina. First goals for this cultivar were semi dwarf stature, high grain yield and diseases resistance (powdery mildew and stem rust). Recently more effort has been put to breed good bread processing wheats and we will present these results here.