Bombed sunflower seed

This article described a South African breakthrough in breeding a superior sunflower hybrid cultivar through irradiation.

Sunflower seed bombarded with gamma rays to produce mutants for the breeding of a new, shorter-stemmed and later-maturing sunflower variety has placed South Africa among the few countries in the world playing a leading part in the use of irradiation in sunflower breeding. This significant breakthrough in sunflower research has been achieved by a leading South African seed breeding firm, Saffola, which has its farm and nurseries in the Bapsfontein area of Gauteng.

The managing director of the firm is JB McOnie, but the mutant project is under the direction of Martin Herring.

The new cultivar, which still has to undergo a strenuous test programme, is expected to answer many of the problems that sunflower growers have encountered up to now.

Herring explains: "The object of our breeding programme was to produce from mutants a long-season sunflower with a higher-than-normal yield and with shortened height and thicker stem to make it resistant to lodging. The idea was to cut the height from about 1,8m to 1,2m. "Yield should be increased by up to 10%. The other big advantage, of course, is the fact that the crop will be more easily handled and harvested." The diameter of the stem in the new short-stemmed type will be increased by about 3,5mm.