Sunflower genotypes for organic agriculture, created at Nardi Fundulea

SUNFLOWER GENOTYPES FOR ORGANIC AGRICULTURE, CREATED AT NARDI FUNDULEA Florin Gabriel ANTON1, Victor PETCU1,2 , Maria JOIȚA-PĂCUREANU1,2 1National Agricultural Research and Development Institute Fundulea, Romania 2Romanian Academy, Center of Study and Research for Agroforestry Biodiversity “Acad. David Davidescu”, Bucharest, Romania *Corresponding authors. E-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION In Romania, sunflower is the main oilseed crop and surface cultivated with this culture in conventional agriculture is around one million hectares and in organic agriculture is cultivated on 46 thousand hectares (Bruma et al, 2021). Organic agriculture of sunflower becomes a very difficult problem, because weeds infestation, soil pests attack and pathogens cause low seed yield. In organic agriculture it is not allowed to use pesticides and chemical fertilizers to control diseases, weeds and soil pests.. In every year in sunflower organic agriculture we observe an attack degree of pathogens Plasmopara halstedii and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. In the last two years, a problem is represented by the wild pigeons that eat the sunflower when it has two cotyledon leaves and the losses are up to 80%. Sunflower plants that escape from pigeons are eaten by rabbits. Another problem is represented by the sparrows that eat the sunflower seeds in the phenophase of filling the seeds and production losses reach up to 60%. A positive thing is that we have not registered any attacks by the Tanymecus dilaticollis Gyll. – (maize leaf weevil) and the Agrotis segetum (turnip moth cutworm) in the last two years in the organic farming field. Methodology In year 2022 and year 2023 we tested, 15 sunflower genotypes in organic conditions, in location Fundulea, county Calarasi, Romania (figure 1). In year 2022 we sowed on date April 30 and in year 2023, sowing date was on May 1, but 80% of young plants in BBCH 10-12 was eaten by birds like seeding crow (Corvus frugilegus) and the collared pigeon (Columba palumbus). We sowing again on date June 1, 2023 and we have also birds attack of 30% . We make observation about pathogens attack to see tolerance\resistance of sunflower genotypes . CONCLUSIONS In organic farming we face many problems such as pest control, disease control, weed control, lower seed yields but healthier for human consumption. From all sunflower genotypes tested in 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea location, we identified one genotype ECO 1, which show tolerance to the pathogen Plasmopara halstedii which cause sunflower downy mildew (figure 5). In year 2023 we observe the presence of pathogen Albugo tragopogonis on sunflower genotypes ECO 5 with an attack degree of 12% and on ECO 6 with an attack degree of 11%. In both years 2002 and 2023 we observed at sunflower genotype ECO15, more then 20% of plants is sensible at lodging. In booth years of study in organic field, we don’t observe presence of pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (white mold) and of pests Tanymecus dilaticollis Gyll. (maize leaf weevil) and Agrotis segetum (turnip moth cutworm) . The most stable seed yield in the study years, was recorded by the oil sunflower genotypes ECO14 and ECO15 (figure 6). No. Type of sunflower Sunflower genotype Sunflower maturity Height ECO 1 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 2 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 3 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 4 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 5 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 6 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 7 Confectionary sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 8 Oil sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 9 Oil sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 10 Oil sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 11 Oil sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 12 Oil sunflower Population late semi -tall ECO 13 Oil sunflower Population semi late semi -dwarf ECO 14 Oil sunflower Variety semi late tall ECO 15 Oil sunflower Variety semi late semi -dwarf Objectives Main objective is to identifying sunflower genotypes suitable for organic agriculture with genetic resistance at pathogens, with high oil content for oil sunflower and low oil content for confectionary sunflower, Results and Discussion Oil seed content (%) of sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, was in year 2022 between 22.17% at ECO 6 and 41.62% at ECO 7. In year 2023, oil seed content was between 20.75% at ECO1 and 39.64% at ECO15 (figure 2). Figure 1.Sunflower genotypes tested for suitable organic culture in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea location Figure 3. Oil seed content (%) of sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea Figure 3. One thousand seed weight TSW (g) of sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea One thousand seed weight (g) at sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, was in year 2022 between 37.76 g at ECO15 and 71.65 g at ECO 1.In year 2023, TSW (g) was between 43.12g at ECO 3 and 79.04g at ECO 2 (figure 2). Hectoliter weight (g/l) at sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in year 2022, was between 27.8 g/l at ECO 2 and 57.1 g/l at ECO 7. and ECO11. In year 2023, HW(g/l) was between 26.2g/l at ECO5 and 56.3g/l at ECO11 (figure 4). Figure 4. Hectoliter weight (g/l) at sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea Figure 5. Attack degree of downy mildew (DW) at sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea Figure 6. Seed yield of sunflower genotypes tested in organic agriculture, in years 2022 and 2023, in Fundulea This research was funded by the European Commission Horizon Europe Research and Innovation program through the project LIVESEEDING.