All the parts of plants (root, leaf, flower) naturally have a high level of microorganisms, bacteria and fungi, especially molds. Microbial contamination could be a result of inappropriate harvesting, cleaning of the raw plant material, unhygienic processing of the plants, unsuitable transport and storage. After examination of over 40 dried medicinal plant species, the lowest microbial quality was determined for Maydis stigma, Mentha leaf and herb, Equisetum herb, Calendula flower, Urtica leaf, Melissa leaf, Serpylli herb, Chamomilla flower etc. Although mixed infections are recorded with different types of fungus, Fusarium was observed as the most dominant genus in most of the tested drugs, followed by Aspergillus and Alternaria. In addition to these fungi species from the following genera were identified: Phoma, Cephalosporium, Nigrospora, Cladosporium, Epicoccum, Gliocladium, Myrothecium, Cercospora, Phomopsis, Verticillium, Dreschlera (=Bipolaris), Rhizoctonia, Septoria, Trichoderma, Curvularia, Stachybotrys, Trichothecium, Puccinia, Botrytis, Mucor and Rhizopus sp., depending on plant species

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Roots of wild growing Angelica archangelica L. from Mt. Ozren (Serbia) were subjected to hydrodistillation and GC-MS analysis. The roots contained 0.10% of essential oil with α-pinene (29.7%), δ-3-carene (14.2%), and a mixture of β-phellandrene and limonene (13.2%) as main compounds. The modified resazurin microtiter-plate assay was used to evaluate the antibacterial activity of the essential oil against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were 14.2 μL/mL for S. aureus and 28.4 μL/mL for E. coli, while the minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBC) were 56.8 μL/mL and 113.6 μL/mL, respectively. According to the obtained results, the angelica root essential oil can be applied as a natural preservative in food and as a natural antibiotic for the treatment of several infectious diseases caused by these two bacteria.

SUMMARYSpelt [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.