Achievements and future prospects of NS confectionery breeding program

Abstract

In the past decade confectionery sunflower has become an essential part of human nutrition and diet programs. Confectionery sunflower breeding is characterized by the fact that different markets have different demands regarding seed size, hull color and other traits, which makes this process more difficult and costly. When creating confectionery hybrids, it is very important to combine genes responsible for high yield potential and good technical and technological traits of the seed. It is expected that highly-productive confectionery hybrids will replace confectionery varieties, which will influence the production of confectionery sunflower. Market demands for confectionery sunflower seeds convinced the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Novi Sad to initiate a special breeding program with the aim of developing modern confectionery open-pollinated hybrids. The specific breeding goals for confectionery sunflower are: increase of protein content and quality >25%; low oil content <40%; oil stability with increase of kernel ratio and decrease of hull ratio; 1000 seed weight >100g; easy dehulling; uniformity of seed size; shape and color; as well as tolerance to dominant diseases and broomrape in regions of cultivation and seed quality maintenance during long term storage. An important part of the breeding program is testing new genotypes and finding genotypes that are distinguished by the stability of the tested properties in different agroecological conditions for easier choices and recommendation of confectionery sunflower hybrids.