Sunflower agronomy: 10 years of research in partnership within the “Sunflower” Technological Joint Unit (UMT) in Toulouse

Abstract

In order to make more efficient plant breeding and gain in competitiveness, the sector of oil-protein crops decided to intensify agronomic research on sunflower crop. The “Sunflower” Joint Technological Unit (Unité Mixte Technologique (UMT) “Tournesol”, in French) was launched in the Toulouse area in 2006, associating closely INRA and Terres Inovia. First focused on improving oil production through an agronomic approach, the UMT was renewed in 2011 with a broader partnership and a more assertive orientation towards the development of decision-making tools. The objective of this paper is to highlight the relevance and productivity of this user-oriented research facility. The main results relate to (i) the co-construction of a simulation model (SUNFLO) that can be parameterized and manipulated by Terres Inovia engineers, (ii) the joint exploration of supra-field scales and new methods for agronomic diagnosis and yield forecasting based on remote sensing, (iii) the tuning and dissemination of operational decision rules, (iv) the production of essential knowledge on emergent and/or damaging fungal diseases, as well as on complex interactions between genotype, environment and crop management. After a concluding symposium in 2016, new requests for sunflower research were formulated by the participants. They also advocated for a diversification of crops to consider in order to better meet the needs of the whole oil-protein sector.

On-field Phenotypic Evaluation of Sunflower Germplasm: Breeding for Broad-spectrum Resistance to Verticillium Leaf Mottle and Wilt

“…The bDS.Gf descriptor seemed to be most suitable for quick disease assessment, since it provided a weighted estimation of DS. The breakage of resistances and the appearance of new Vd pathogenic races have underscored the need for BSR sources in sunflower [12][13][14]27,40 . The inoculum load measured in the infested field of EEA INTA Balcarce (circa 900 CFU/g, Supplementary Table 7), which is known to harbor a wide diversity of Vd isolates, is four times higher than the reported by Erreguerena et al (2019) 41 .…”

3 - Références et référentiels techniques en agronomie : de quoi s’agit-il ? Que faut-il faire ?

“…Tableau 1 : Conseil de densité de semis pour la culture du tournesol (Debaeke et al, 2020) Codes couleurs des surlignages : modalité technique de l'action ; contexte ; résultat recherché Degré de contrainte Hydrique (1) Objectif de densité de levée (2) Cas général (3) Conditions optimales (4) Taux de Comme dans le cas précédent, le référentiel est sous-tendu par un important background de connaissances, concernant ici les processus de détachement et transport des particules terreuses. La couverture du sol par la culture et/ou les résidus de récolte y ont un rôle déterminant, à travers l'interception des gouttes de pluie et le ralentissement du ruissellement.…”

New challenges for sunflower ideotyping in changing environments and more ecological cropping systems

“…phenotyping, crop modeling, genomic prediction, multi-goal optimization, participatory breeding...) could be useful for the exploration and design of ideotypes (e.g. Picheny et al, 2017aPicheny et al, , 2017bVincourt and Carolo, 2018;Gosseau et al, 2019;Debaeke et al, 2020). The existence of important wild and cultivated genetic resources in sunflower should facilitate the adaptation to this new context as well (Vear, 2016;Seiler et al, 2017;Terzić et al, 2020).…”