Sunflower

InnoSun – Using new innovative breeding approaches in sunflower to increase oil yield, oleic acid content and disease resistance

Anne-Marie Stache, Eva Bauer, Chris-Carolin Schön
Project duration: 15.04.2017 - 14.04.2020
Project partner: Silke Wieckhorst, Milena Ouzunova, KWS SAAT SE; Volker Hahn, Universität Hohenheim, Brigitte Poppenberger, TUM-BT; Martin Ganal, Trait Genetics GmbH
Project managment agency: Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (FNR)
Funding: Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (BMEL)

Project description:

The project InnoSun aims at increasing competitiveness of sunflower production thereby expanding the spectrum of oil plants for the sustainable production of renewable raw materials for the German and European market. This ambitious goal can be achieved by combining unique genetic resources that were developed by the InnoSun partners in a previous project, with innovative breeding strategies that allow for the simultaneous breeding improvement of important agronomic traits like oil yield and quality as well as disease tolerance.

The InnoSun consortium that consists of private and public partners aims at investigating the following research topics: i) Genotypic and phenotypic evaluation of experimental populations for oil content, high oleic acid content, Sclerotinia tolerance, and earliness, ii) development of statistical models for the multivariate genomic selection, iii) identification of a new genetic source for breeding high oleic acid sunflowers, iv) development of cost-effective SNP genotyping methods, and v) establishment of multivariate prediction in sunflower breeding.

Significant breeding improvements of sunflower will increase its competitiveness, and will contribute to the preservation of biodiversity in the German and European agriculture.