A budding opportunity:

Confectionary sunflowers are getting a much-needed makeover!

Thanks to continued producer levy support and funding from the Diverse Field Crops Cluster – a program which supports development initiatives for promising Canadian crops – researchers are making confectionary sunflower crops competitive in an international market by advancing outdated genetics.

Darcelle Graham is the Chief Operating Officer for the Manitoba Crop Alliance, and the principal investigator leading this ambitious project. Her team has been working to develop hybrids that are adaptable to Canadian growing conditions and produce seeds with traits that meet domestic and international standards.

The project aims to fulfill two primary objectives:

1)    Develop a made-for-Canada hybrid that produces longer (called ‘long-type’) seeds;

2)    Incorporate herbicide and disease tolerant traits within these hybrids with long-type seeds.

Current Canadian confectionary sunflowers produce short, round seeds. While these seed-types may be suitable for our domestic markets, they don’t measure-up on the international stage. This means producers are missing out on a large market opportunity.

“What we’re looking at doing is increasing the length of the seed,” says Graham. “We’re trying to develop a hybrid that’s going to produce a seed that is good for our domestic markets as well as international.”

“Our goal is to have one commercial hybrid released, or near release, by the end of 2023,” declared Graham.

Its a tall order but, they’re well on their way!

Over the past few years, the research team has successfully developed hybrid varieties that can produce the long-type seed. But can these hybrids adapt to the demanding growing conditions of the Canadian prairies?

Canadian crops need to be hardy. They need to grow quickly and be able to compete against weeds and disease.

Graham’s team is now working to incorporate herbicide and disease resistant traits into their long-type seed hybrids.

“Having herbicide tolerance within sunflower hybrids allows our producers to have clean fields,” explains Graham. Plants that can compete against weeds provide growers with high yielding crops that produce quality seeds: a profitable combination.

Picking which hybrid is most likely to have these desired genetic traits is typically time consuming. But the team invested in a modern scientific method called SNP-marking (single nucleotide polymorphisms) to advance their progress.

“Our breeder will take a leaf sample of one of the hybrids we’re pursuing,” explains Graham, “and we can identify whether the markers are present – in terms of disease resistance – before we go through further testing.”

This method allows the team to narrow down their search from hundreds of options to a select few that would be suitable for field testing.

This past summer, the research team completed strip-trial testing on one select long-type seed hybrid with the desired herbicide and disease resistant traits. Results showed promise in terms of yield and based on those results, the team has selected their top hybrid candidate to move on to second generation testing in 2021.

“It’s a slow-moving wheel but, when you start to see things coming together it’s really exciting!” exclaimed Graham.

This varietal research has been a long-time coming for Canadian sunflower growers and the advancements being made are sure to jump-start the industry.

“These hybrids will offer multiple market streams for producers,” says Graham. “That’s going to benefit the whole value chain.”

Written by Janna Moats

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This DFCC activity is led by Manitoba Crop Alliance with funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership program, Manitoba Crop Alliance, Western Grains Research Foundation, and the Government of Manitoba & Government of Canada through the CAP-Ag Action Manitoba program.

The Diverse Field Crops Cluster (DFCC) is a unique alliance of industry partners: Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, Canary Seed Development Commission of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission, Smart Earth Camelina Corporation, Manitoba Crop Alliance, Mustard 21 Canada Inc, and Northern Quinoa Production Corporation. DFCC aligns industry and research stakeholders to seize market opportunities and accelerate the acreage and market returns of special crops. Ag-West Bio leads this five-year research cluster which is funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Canadian Agricultural Partnership program and industry partners.