Sunflowers are tough plants, but now University of Colorado Boulder researchers are looking to make them even tougher in an effort to combat climate change.
Sunflowers are tough plants, but now University of Colorado Boulder researchers are looking to make them even tougher in an effort to combat climate change.
In the state’s dry, nutrient-deficient soil, CU Boulder researchers and others aim to learn if the crop can survive and even thrive in a hotter, drier future.
Researchers with North Dakota State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working to see if a particular variety of Lewis flax has the potential to be a useful crop.
How to breed a climate resilient sunflower? Look to its ancient cousins.
Already capable of growing in harsh conditions, sunflowers have the potential to withstand even more.
BySarah Gibbens
Email
The trend is clear, says Brent Hulke: The climate is changing in North Dakota and sunflowers are working harder to survive.
Hulke is a research geneticist specializing in sunflowers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) research facility in Fargo, North Dakota. He helps breed better versions of the domesticated plant,
Helianthus annuus, whose seeds we snack on and whose oil we cook with. It’s here that breeders make sunflowers more resistant to diseases, increase their Vitamin E content, or change their fatty acid compositions to make them healthier.