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
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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.
A Field Guide to North America s Wild Crops
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These sunflowers in San Diego National Wildlife Refuge are wild relatives of sunflowers that farmers around the world grow to produce oil. // USFWS, Lisa Cox
Hundreds of native North American plants, often dismissed as weeds, deserve a lot more respect, according to a new study. These plants, distant cousins of foods like cranberries and pumpkins, actually represent a botanical treasure now facing increased threat from climate change, habitat loss and invasive species.
The crops that the human race now depends on, including grains like wheat and tree fruit like peaches, originally were selected or bred from plants that grew wild hundreds or thousands of years ago. And those ancestral plants, like the small wild sunflowers that can be found across the United States, still exist. If you see them growing along roadsides, those are the ancestors, says Colin Khoury, a research scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
Originally published on December 16, 2020 8:22 am
Hundreds of native North American plants, often dismissed as weeds, deserve a lot more respect, according to a new study. These plants, distant cousins of foods like cranberries and pumpkins, actually represent a botanical treasure now facing increased threat from climate change, habitat loss and invasive species.
The crops that the human race now depends on, including grains like wheat and tree fruit like peaches, originally were selected or bred from plants that grew wild hundreds or thousands of years ago. And those ancestral plants, like the small wild sunflowers that can be found across the United States, still exist. If you see them growing along roadsides, those are the ancestors, says Colin Khoury, a research scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
Hundreds of native North American plants, often dismissed as weeds, deserve a lot more respect, according to a new study. These plants, distant cousins of foods like cranberries and pumpkins, actually represent a botanical treasure now facing increased threat from climate change, habitat loss and invasive species.
The crops that the human race now depends on, including grains like wheat and tree fruit like peaches, originally were selected or bred from plants that grew wild hundreds or thousands of years ago. And those ancestral plants, like the small wild sunflowers that can be found across the United States, still exist. If you see them growing along roadsides, those are the ancestors, says Colin Khoury, a research scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
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