PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON CREATING NEW SUNFLOWER (Helianthus annuus L.) WITH RESISTANCE TO DROUGHT BASED ON INTERSPECIFIC HYBRIDATION WITH WILD SILVERLEAF SUNFLOWER (Helianthus argophyllus TORR. & A. GRAY)

In the period 2008-2013 at NARDI Fundulea research have been carried out in order to introduce drought-resistant gene/genes from wild to Helianthus annuus L. cultivated species. Interspecific hybridisation, backcross (six generations) and self-pollination (two generations), and a rigorous selection (after each generation, under the water stress conditions and minimum inputs) for productivity, MMB and oil content were performed. Drought resistance and yield quality improvement under organic farm conditions is a difficult goal due to polygenic determinism of these characters. Progress has been obtained for genetic characters studied (production, oil content and MMB) for all inbreeded lines presented. One of these lines presented improved values for all characters as compared with maternal lines. Four from seven inbreeded lines were improved achenes production and the other 3 improved lines have better capacity of oil production in drought conditions and in the organic farms technology. The results from 2013 confirmed the improvement trends reported from the previous selection years.