The severe floods that hit Balkan countries this month, said to be worst in 100 years, have not spared research infrastructure.

On May 14th, the research center at the Institute of Vegetable Crops in Smederevska Palanka, in Serbia, started evacuating equipment and valuable assets, but experimental plots were flooded between May 15th and 16th by up to one meter of water, according to a statement issued by the institute on 20th May.

The institute’s greenhouses were completely flooded, together with hybrid tomato and pepper that were grown there to provide seeds to farmers. Some 150 hectares of agricultural farms with a variety of plants were also submerged and destroyed.

The genebank housed at the institute, said to be of critical value to future scientific research and the biodiversity of Serbia was saved thanks to the institute’s employees.

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Mićo Tatalović

Science journalist, news editor at Research Professional News

Mićo Tatalović is a news editor at Research Professional News. He has previously worked as a science news editor at Nature, New Scientist, and SciDev.Net. In 2018, he completed the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US, where he researched the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in science journalism. He is also immediate former chairman of the Association of British Science Writers, and a board member of the European Federation for Science Journalism.

He runs the section Balkan Science Beat.

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