The wild sunflowers collection in Novi Sad

Abstract

Lowered genetic variability in the cultivated sunflower and use of interspecies hybridization in sunflower breeding were the main reasons to establish the wild species collection. Wild species were collected during collecting trips performed jointly by researchers from Novi Sad and Fargo from 1980 to 1991. A total of 917 accessions were gathered. Different numbers of species (1-37) and populations (52-384) were gathered in each trip and wild sunflower habitats were inspected in 6-21 US federal states. Presently, there are 21 perennial and 7 annual species in the collection, represented by 447 accessions. The perennial species are grown in quarantine fields (311 accessions) and kept in temporary seed storage at +4° (163 accessions). Annual species are sawn each year and 136 accessions are kept in temporary seed storage. Seed reserves vary from a few seeds to several thousand per accession and all of them were produced in the period between 1998 and 2004. Several problems were encountered in the course of the establishment, maintenance and utilization of the collection: 1. Occasional errors in species determination during collection trips were caused by the presence of natural hybrids, heterogeneity of natural populations and differences in ploidy within the same species; 2. The local continental climate caused loss in material due to winterkill and inability of some species to complete the vegetative cycle; 3. Perennial species were difficult to grow because of low seed viability; 4. Low self-fertility or complete selfsterility precluded seed production and renewal of seed reserves; 5. Wild species were difficult to utilize as a source of desirable genes because of their cross incompatibility with cultivated sunflower.The collection of wild sunflower species has mostly been used for development of disease resistant or tolerant genotypes, new cms and Rf genes and for breeding of special-purpose hybrids.