The foundation of the Industrial Crops Department (later renamed the Oil Crops Department) in 1962 marked the start of sunflower breeding at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad. The Department was among the first in the world to develop productive sunflower hybrids based on cytoplasmic male sterility (such hybrids were developed early in France and Romania as well). The main goal of the Institute's sunflower program is to develop sunflower hybrids with high seed and oil yields that are resistant to the common sunflower diseases and drought. The program also develops hybrids for special purposes. These include sunflowers with altered oil quality, confectionery hybrids, hybrids to be used as poultry or bird feed, hybrids tolerant of certain herbicide groups (imidazolinones, tribenuron methyl), and ornamental sunflowers. Over the past 40 years, the IFVC sunflower team has developed a total of 178 sunflower hybrids, 130 of which were released abroad. The Institute also has well-developed cooperation programs on joint hybrid development with over 30 foreign partner companies from around the world, enabling the utilization of genetic variability on an international level. These have produced a total of 125 joint hybrids released in different European and non-European countries that play a major role in the global sunflower production, most notably in countries such as France, Russia, Ukraine, China, and so on. The leading NS hybrids in Serbian commercial sunflower production are NS-H-111, Bacvanin, Banacanin and Velja. These will eventually be replaced on the fields by the latest batch of top-quality NS genotypes that includes the hybrids Sremac, Sumadinac, Baca, Kazanova, Dusko, Branko, Oliva and Novosađanin. .