Sunflower breeding for resistance to the new broomrape race in the krasnodar region of Russia

Abstract

Broomrape (Orobanche cumana Wallr.) is a parasitic plant, feeding on sunflower roots. In recent years some new, more aggressive broomrape races have been found in different parts of the world (Spain, Turkey, Romania, etc.). Soon afterwards they occurred in Russia and we started a special breeding program to control the parasites. A line (VK 623) resistant to race F was previously found among the lines from the VNIIMK breeding program. Several new prospective sunflower inbred lines with resistance to both broomrape races, E and F, were developed in a short time. Now they are being converted to cmslines. However, the recessive character of their resistance creates some difficulties in commercial sunflower hybrid breeding, so, to obtain new donors of resistance, the cultivated sunflower was crossed with H. tuberosus (used as pollinator).