The study represents a review of the evolution of the parasitic plant Orobanche cumana Wallr. and current racial status in some sunflower cultivating countries. Identification of racial status of broomrape populations belonging to eight sunflower cultivating countries from Europe and Asia (Republic of Moldova Romania Bulgaria Ukraine Spain Turkey Serbia and China) revealed the presence of high virulent races G and H in the majority of countries except Serbia where accessions belonging to race E or less virulent than E were found. The most virulent race H was identified particularly in the Black Sea area (Romania Ukraine and Turkey). Additionally the emergence of new biotypes characterized by high virulence overcoming the resistance genes to race H was observed in some areas of the Republic of Moldova Romania and Turkey which signifies the importance of periodic evaluations of racial status for the prevention of occurrence and dissemination of new races. Analyzing the occurrence chronology of broomrape races in different countries we conclude that by the mid-1990s the state of play was relatively stable the most aggressive race being E. After this period the process of O. cumana development and appearance of new more aggressive and virulent biotypes became faster which may be explained by the intensification of sunflower breeding activities and respectively by the selection pressure exerted on the parasite by new resistant hybrids.

Sunflower is used for the production of oil confectionery and animal feed. Birds are very fond of sunflowers and can be pests of sunflower crops and are consumers of seeds. Sunflower poultry feed is an emerging market that determines the direction of breeding. Its development is based on the determination of bird preferences and the available variety of sunflower lines. This is what our research is devoted to. Experimental feeding of chickens with a mixture of sunflower seeds of different colours was carried out. Chickens have been found to prefer contrasting striped seeds with white and dark stripes more than others. The white colour of the seeds was eaten less than others. Studies of the genetics of sunflower colour allow us to distinguish two groups of lines by seed colour. The first has white seeds with the EwEwPP genotype suitable for use in human confectionery and more protected from being eaten by wild birds in the fields. The second is striped seeds with the EstrEstrPP genotype which can be fed whole seeds to birds. Donors of seed colour traits and other traits important for hybrid breeding were selected from the evaluated collection of sunflower lines. InK1039 line is a donor of small striped seeds and pollen fertility restoration. InK1587 line is a sterility fixer and donor of striped and early maturing seeds. To create hybrids with white seeds for human consumption and thus more resistant to ingestion by wild birds white seed donors were isolated with KG9 to restore pollen fertility and I2K2218 in a pollen sterility fixer.

Weed infestation induces intense competition with the sunflower crop for soil nutrients space and light causing significant yield losses of the sunflower. Therefore study was undertaken during the year 2013–15 at College of Agriculture University of Sargodha Pakistan to determine the effect of Cyperus rotundus infestation on various morphological and biochemical traits. Initially a screening experiment was carried out to screen against C. rotundus infestation. Later on cross combinations of selected cytoplasmic male sterile and restorer lines were attempted to develop F 1 progenies which were compared with commercial hybrids along with parents. There were 6 parental lines (3 A and 3 R lines) along with 9 single cross combinations obtained from these parents. Experiment was carried out in complete randomized design having factorial arrangement with three replications. Weed in one of regime latter called as control were completely absent while in weed infestation regimes 5 and 10 plants of C. rotundus were maintained. Results showed that C. rotundus infestation causes significant damage to the sunflower plants. Generally cross combination showed a decrease of leaf area by 440% and 264% 61% and 49% for chlorophyll contents 133% and 191% for head weight under low and high weed infestation regime respectively. However antioxidant activity increased by 44% and 49% under low and high infestation regime induced by C. rotundus. Sunflower genotypes also showed variability in competitive ability against C. rotundus weed. Cross combinations coded as (A10 A7 and A2) showed lower comparative decrease for seed yield and oil contents when compared with standard hybrids under the presence of C. rotundus . Development of sunflower hybrids with better competitive ability under the presence of weeds such as C. rotundus may able to enhance plant development and lower yield losses in sunflower field with minimum the use of herbicide.

Oil content and other yield contributing metric traits are highly influenced by environmental conditions hence the phenotype of a trait is a response of interaction between environment and genetic makeup of crop. Climate change is one of the major challenge faced by growers nowadays because it adversely affects the growth and development of sunflower and ultimately reduce oil content. Therefore keeping in view the challenge of climate change the present research was conducted during 2019 to evaluate the performance of 28 sunflower hybrids under normal and terminal heat stress conditions at the research farms of the College of Agriculture University of Sargodha Sargodha-Pakistan. Pakistan. Data were recorded on days to 100% flowering stem girth (cm) head diameter (cm) 100-achene weight (g) and oil contents (%). Analysis of variance revealed the presence of genetic diversity among 28 hybrids for all the traits under consideration. Irrespective of traits the mean square revealed the role of experimental error was minimum than the environment genotype and their interaction ( G × E ). The environmental influence was found to be 68.94 49.99 53.94% for days to 100% flowering stem girth (cm) and 100-achene weight (g) respectively. However genotypes play a major source of variation for head diameter (cm) and oil content (%). Oil content has a significant positive correlation with traits under study. Based on mean performance under normal and terminal heat stress conditions hybrid SF-19033 and SF-19028 performed best for yield contributing traits and adoptable under the environmental conditions of Sargodha-Pakistan.

The present investigation is directed at improving sunflower using hybrids having diverse cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) sources from Helianthus annuus and H. argophyllus . The aim is to develop and identify promising lines and hybrids with a high combining ability and to obtain highly productive oilseed sunflower hybrids having diverse CMS sources. Five diversified CMS lines and 10 testers were crossed in a line × tester mating design to develop 50 F 1 hybrids for genetic analysis. The pooled analysis of variance revealed significant differences among hybrids for the traits studied. The mean squares of lines and testers from crosses and GCA variance components revealed the prevalence of additive variances and additive gene action. The mean squares of lines × tester interactions were also significant for all the traits considered. The significance of lines × tester interactions and SCA variance components indicated that SCA is also important in the expression of traits and demonstrated the role of dominant and epistatic genes in controlling the various traits. Among the diverse CMS lines ARG-6-3-1-4was identified as the best general combiner for stem diameter volume weight seed yield hull content and oil content. While the line ARG-2-1-2 was the best general combiner for days to 50 per cent flowering head diameter 100 seed weight and seed filling per cent. The tester M17-R was observed to be the best general combiner for earliness and volume weight while RHA 93 was the best general combiner for plant height seed yield and oil content. The crossMUT-2-8-3-2 × GKVK 3 was found to be a good specific combiner for stem diameter 100 seed weight seed yield seed filling percentage and oil content while ARG-6-3-1-4 × GKVK 3 was a good specific combiner for days to 50% flowering plant height and 100 seed weight. The highest standard heterosis for seed yield was observed in the hybrid MUT-2-8-3-2 × GKVK 3 followed by ARG-2-1-2 × LTRR 822 while for oil content the highest was seen in the cross ARG-6-3-1-4 × RHA95-C-1 and thus these hybrids can be exploited for sunflower improvement and diversifying the cytoplasmic male sterile sources of this valuable oilseed crop.

Eared doves ( Zenaida auriculata ) cause significant economic damage to mature sunflower in Argentina. Empirical evidences indicate that some sunflower hybrids (e.g. confectionary and stripped oilseed) might be less susceptible to bird damage than others (e.g. black oilseed). However these less susceptible hybrids could imply a trade-off between damage reduction and oil content on the seeds. In this work we investigated the potential of a new oil-con hybrid types (OC: oilseed × confectionary cross) as a tool to prevent eared dove damage to sunflower crops. We compared the performance (damage values) morphological characteristics and nutritive quality of this hybrid compared to other three standard sunflower hybrids (BO: black oilseed SO: striped oilseed and CON: confectionary) both in the field and in cages. In both tests doves significantly selected BO and SO hybrids over CON and OC hybrids. The OC hybrid was not selected despite its high nutritional value. Results suggest that achene size could be an important morphological trait influenced eared dove selection of hybrids independently of other seed characteristics. Based on these results the OC hybrid tested in this study seems to be a promising tool for preventing eared dove damage to sunflower in Argentina.

Pakistan is in dire need of an oil and oil-based products For this the prime objective is to pay serious attention to oilseed crops and mainly towards sunflower because the oil is of very good quality in terms of nutrition value; also the cake can be used as feed for animals. The crop can trim the import bill of edible oil. It takes only 130 days to reach maturity with comparatively less cost and highly divined in sense of plentiful yield. Thus breeders are trying to produce good quality accessions that may also fulfil the need of quantity where climate change is also the main issue. The present research was conducted at the Raja wala farm situated near the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics University of Agriculture Faisalabad during the year 2020–21. Twenty accessions of sunflower were sown in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. From each line five plants were tested to check the genetic variability correlation coefficient analysis for different morphological characters and yield-related traits of sunflower. The data of quantitative traits were recorded i.e. plant height (cm) the number of leaves/plant head diameter (cm) internodal length (cm) leaf area (cm) 100 seed weight (g) total yield per plant (%) oil content (%) and protein content (%). Analysis of variance and mean comparisons of sunflower accessions had highly significant differences for all traits. Most of the character’s ranges are comparable with the ranges found in the literature. The accession G-32 showed good performance for oil content protein content and head diameter. So this breeding material can be used in the breeding program for the enhancement of sunflower yield. The accessions G-38 G-28 and G-32 showed good performance for total seed weight 100 seed weight oil content and protein content.