ProSun - Implementation of innovative breeding approaches to establish sunflower as a competitive oil and protein crop for the German market

The project ProSun aims at making sunflower in Germany and EU-wide economically competitive. To realize it, it is necessary to diversify sunflower’s applications and to increase and secure its yield potential. With the cultivation of sunflower, the spectrum of our crops will be expanded as well as combined with a responsible food production. Sunflower is one of our most important oilseed crops and has the potential to become an important protein supplier. It can be anticipated that in Europe, a fast-increasing demand of plant proteins will face a low cultivation of protein supplying plants. Therefore, the dual utilization of sunflower as oil and protein supplier will increase its attractiveness for farmers. For this purpose, an understanding of the genetic basics for the knowledge-based increase of protein content combined with sufficient oil content, early maturity and disease resistance is necessary. Modern breeding methods like high-throughput phenotyping and Speed Breeding combined with marker-assisted selection for targeted gene selection as well as for the genome-wide selection in fast cycles are the basis for the increase and acceleration of the breeding progress.

The ProSun consortium targets the following research topics: i) Global characterization of the genetic variation underlying the target traits in a large-scale and diverse collection of sunflower lines, ii) Combination of beneficial traits in selected lines, iii) Implementation of precise methods and tools for the high-throughput analysis and quantitative evaluation of disease resistance as well as of the valuable ingredients, iv) Development of prediction models for product quality and additional agronomic traits based on DNA profiles, v) Transfer of the obtained results to breeding of improved dual usage varieties to increase the native protein supply.