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Perennial ryegrass breeding goal in our country is creating of cultivars with improved production of quality dry matter and increased acclimatization for local agroecological conditions in Serbia. As a result of long breeding process first domestic-breed perennial ryegrass cultivar K-11 is created in Institute for forage crops in Kruševac. Cultivar is formed of 6 lines which are progenies of genotipes chosen after two cicles of fenotipe recurent selection from autochthonous Serbian populations. It is intermediate heading sintetic cultivar with improved persistency and high genetic potential for most important agronomic traits whict is notificated in trials on four locations in Serbia. During two-year investigation period basic morphological and productive traits were scored, while chemical composition of dry matter was determined in second year. Plants in stands are tall 75 cm in first cut with strong regeneration (Tab. 1). K-11 has reached average two-year dry matter yield of over 6,4 tha-1 without irrigation, or 900 kgha-1 more than standard cultivar (Tab. 2). On locality Kruševac new cultivar has showed crude protein yield over 814 kgha-1 (Tab. 3). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perennial grasses represent basis of sustainable livestock breeding and livestock feed production, it is main food for ruminants in the regions with moderate climate, as component of natural and sown pastures and meadows that can be used as pasture, cutting, haylage and silage. The most important species for livestock feed are cocksfoot, perennial ryegrass, meadow fescue, tall fescue, Italian ryegrass, tall oatgrass, red fescue and smooth browengrass. Considering that the effect of the genotype, i.e. cultivar, on the yield is 50% and more, breeding of perennial grasses is in the focus of attention. The most important prerequisite for breeding is that the initial material has sufficient amount of genetic variability. Main traits of perennial grasses which are the centre of selection are yield and quality of dry matter, time of maturation, persistency and tolerance to drought, and seed yield. The most successful methods of breeding of perennial grasses is phenotypic recurrent selection, modified in order to shorten the selection cycle it self and reduce undesirable crossings, monitoring polycross using the method of crossing and forming of synthetic cultivar. As a result of long breeding work in domestic scientific institutions, 19 forage and one park cultivar of perennial grasses have been acknowledged and included into cultivar list. In future breeding work, special attention must be directed to introduction of new modern breeding methods and increase of number of species of perennial grasses included into breeding programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]