Achievements and further directions in sunflower breeding in the world

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Dragan Skoric

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbia

: J Plant Physiol Pathol

Abstract

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Global sunflower breeding can be divided into two periods: The first one, spanning 1910 to 1970, was when the Russian Empire and the USSR developed productive varieties with high seed oil content, resistance to the dominant diseases, the sunflower moth, the broomrape races of the time, and broad adaptability. Also, during the same period, varieties were developed in Argentina that was suitable for the conditions of South America; and the second period, from 1970 until the present, was marked by the discovery of sources of cytoplasmic male sterility and the restorer genes, which has enabled the use of the phenomenon of heterosis and the development of sunflower hybrids. This period is characterized by the establishment of important breeding programs in public institutions and private companies. The result of their work is the development of a large number of productive hybrids, which have helped the increase of the acreage in sunflower on a global scale and the increase of yields and their stability. Of all the field crops, the sunflower has the largest number of wild relatives within the genus Helianthus. There are diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid wild sunflower species. Among them, the perennial species are more common than the annual ones. Using interspecific hybridization, a number of desirable traits have been incorporated into cultivated sunflower genotypes from the wild species.

Biography

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Dragan Škorić served as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad in 1983 and in 1990 he became Professor in the same faculty. From 1980 until his retirement in 2006, he was the Head of the Oilseeds Department of the Institute of Field Crops and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad. He was a member of the Council for Scientific and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and, between 2003 and 2006 he was Director of the Biotechnology and Agroindustry Program. In 2003, he was elected as a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and in 2009 a full member of the Academy. He has won numerous national and international awards, the most important of which is the Pustovoit Prize awarded by the International Sunflower Association (ISA) in 1988 for his outstanding contribution to the development of science. In 1981, he was awarded with the Kivalo Munkaert, awarded by the Ministry Hungarian Agriculture. In 1987, he received the Certificate of Appreciation, awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the success of joint projects, in 2005 the Friendship Award of the Government of Jilin Province, China.

Email: draganskoric@sbb.rs