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Sunflower Study Underway
Published Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 04:47 AM
ARS researchers have gone to great lengths to collect samples of Sunflower seeds. They want to learn if Australian Sunflower hybrids are displaying more resistance to certain diseases. ARS scientists estimate their sunflower expedition took them on a journey of more than 62-hundred miles through Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. They found species in yards, hedgerows, municipal garbage dumps and other sites.

ARS plant pathologist Tom Gulya and botanist Gerald Seiler hope they can identify new genes that could be incorporated into American sunflower hybrids for improved resistance to fungal diseases including downy mildew, rust and Sclerotinia stalk rot. Gulya considers stalk rot enough of an economic threat to the U.S. sunflower crop that incorporating even partial resistance from the Aussie plants would be worthwhile.

The seeds are now being evaluated in greenhouse trials in Fargo, North Dakota. A University of British Columbia collaborator will compare the plants' genetic profiles to those of American wild sunflowers. This could reveal whether the Aussie sunflowers have undergone significant genetic changes.

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