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.

Gene banks for wild and cultivated sunflower genetic resources

“…Additional seed samples were obtained from collection trips to Montenegro in 1991 and USA in 2001, as well as by exchange from other gene banks (Atlagić et al, 2006).…”

“…Research was first concentrated on evaluation of most economically important traits. Based on the findings, intensive interspecific crosses were made between wild species and cultivated sunflower (Atlagić et al, 2006). Oil quantity was determined for all accessions (Ćuk, 1982), while resistance to Phomopsis stem canker and Sclerotinia was determined for selected species (Škorić and Rajčan, 1992).…”

Germplasm resources for increasing the genetic diversity of global cultivated sunflower

“…However, other wild species collections have been established. Notable are collections at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Novi Sad, Serbia, which contains 39 of the 52 wild species and 447 accessions (IBPGR, 1984;Cuk and Seiler, 1985;Atlagić et al, 2006), the collection of the Dobroudja Agricultural Institute (DAI) at General Toshevo, Bulgaria, containing 428 accessions representing 37 of the 52 species of Helianthus (Christov et al, 2001), and the collection maintained at INRA, Montpellier, France, which has more than 600 accessions of 45 of the 52 wild sunflower species (Serieys, 1992). The Institudo de Agricultura Sostenible (CSIC), Cordoba, Spain, maintains 44 annual and perennial accessions of Helianthus (Ruso et al, 1996), while Sujatha (2006)…”

Variability of morphological characters among ornamental sunflower collection

“…The success in breeding mostly depends on available genetic collection. There are many available collections concerning wild sunflower species (MAREK et al, 2008;ATLAGIĆ et al, 2006;NOORYAZDAN et al, 2010;SEILER, 2011) as well as cultivated (COQUE et al, 2008;ŠKORIĆ, 2008;MANDEL et al, 2011;MORENO et al, 2013). The sunflowers display an amazing variety of morphological variation, ranging in height from less than 1m to over 4 m, and, having highly branched to unbranched stems, opposite to alternate leaf arrangements, and ray florets ranging in color from yellow to red.…”