Hybridization produces strong evolutionary forces. In hybrid zones, selection can differentially occur on traits and selection intensities may differ among hybrid generations. Understanding these dynamics in crop-wild hybrid zones can clarify crop-like traits likely to introgress into wild populations and the particular hybrid generations through which introgression proceeds. In a field experim...

Identifying the best inbred combinations for the development of commercial hybrid of sunflower remains the main challenge to sunflower breeders. In the present research the level of heterosis of F1 hybrids, genetic diversity of parental lines based on SSR markers, as well as its connection with specific combining ability of sunflower were studied. Ten sunflower elite inbred lines (3 restorer li...

Four sunflower accessions were compared with a susceptible check, hybrid '894', in the greenhouse to determine their resistance to the banded sunflower moth, Cochylis hospes Walsingham, and their interaction with Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner variety kurstaki. Antibiosis, expressed as lower larval weight, was detected in all of the accessions. In addition to being antibiotic, sunflower access...

In sunflower, molecular markers for simple traits as, e.g., fertility restoration, high oleic acid content, herbicide tolerance or resistances to Plasmopara halstedii, Puccinia helianthi, or Orobanche cumana have been successfully used in marker-assisted breeding programs for years. However, agronomically important complex quantitative traits like yield, heterosis, drought tolerance, oil conten...

A new study finds a dramatic increase in transposable element numbers in three new sunflower hybrid species, and may suggest a novel role for transposable elements in speciation.

Hybrid identification of 16 sunflower hybrids was confirmed using simple-sequence repeat methodology. Of 20 specific simple-sequence repeat primers, 18 authenticated the purity of these hybrids; the remaining two specific primer pairs gave ambiguous DNA fragments. The results indicate that simple-sequence repeat analysis for the identification of hybrids derived from the crossing of different i...

Targeted gene replacement in plastids was used to explore whether the rbcL gene that codes for the large subunit of ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, the key enzyme of photosynthetic CO2 fixation, might be replaced with altered forms of the gene. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants were transformed with plastid DNA that contained the rbcL gene from either sunflower (Helianthus an...

keeping constant all agronomic factors except temperature is a way to follow heat shock proteins (hsps) expression. three different sunflower hybrids derived from the cross between an inbred line, cms ha 89, and three different restorer inbred lines, with resistance, susceptible, and normal reactions to drought, were produced. in order to investigate the impact of temperature on protein accumul...