The sunflower pre-breeding pilot study of the Project is being coordinated by two organizations: the Department of Botany of the University of British Columbia, and the National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute (NaSARRI) of the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) of Uganda. The NaSARRI is one of the 15 Public Agricultural Research Institutes of Uganda, and is dedicated to generating and disseminating appropriate agricultural production technologies and information for semi-arid ecological zones.
The first component of the sunflower pre-breeding work involved genotyping 10 populations of each of the 10 annual sunflower species, 50 populations of wild Helianthus annuus, and additional individuals within several populations for a total of 400 individuals using Genotype By Sequencing (GBS) technology. The most diverse set of these accessions were selected and crossed with the elite cultivated sunflower variety HA 89, followed by a series of back-crosses and multiple generations of selfing to generate the pre-bred materials. Finally, these pre-bred lines were sent to Uganda to be evaluated for tolerance to various abiotic and biotic stresses in the field, with promising pre-bred lines being test-crossed with in-bred lines to produce F1 hybrids. The evaluated pre-bred lines will be used to develop more environmentally resilient sunflower varieties, particularly suited for cultivation in arid areas such as those found in Uganda.
Preliminary results of the sunflower pre-breeding work are promising. For example, one population of wild sunflower species Helianthus hirsutus was found to have genes for early flowering, a key trait for climate change adaptation. Another population of the same species (H. hirsutus) was found to have genes for increased head diameter (which is closely correlated to yield). Another interesting finding was the substantial genetic diversity that was found within individual wild sunflower species.
