Spring Sunflower PSFH-118 at Ludhiana (PB) and HSFH-848 Hybrid at Hisar (HR) for Oil Quality and Seed Yield in India

The Field trials on sunlower crop were conducted in different in states of India during the year from 2006 to2008. The RSFPD, Government of India, DADF provided all inputs to conduct the tirals in the area under their juridiction to evaluate the suitable varieties vs hybrids of sunflower, their sowing season, irrigations vs rainfed conditions of cultivation including other agronomic package of practices. Government of India has strong feed and fodder development organization. There are several centrally sponsored schems like establishment of fodder banks, development of forage crops through biotechnology research, minikits distribution in the country. Central government distributed latest variety seeds in the country to a tune of cost of Rs 7.00 crores through eight RSFPDs. The sunflower is a multi-purose crop and may be good source of animal feeds as a un-conventional feed resource. Sunflower can be grown with forage crops also. RSFPDs organized sunflower trials in different states to evaluate sunflower production in northern and southern parts of India. The varieties and hybrids released by AICRP (Sunflower) for different regions were selected for field trials. India has tropical and subtropical climate from south to north, respectively. Tamilnadu and Maharastra face the tropical while, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh experience a sub-tropical type of climate having February and March as spring season in Northen India. All India released hybrid PSFH-118 and HSFH-848 were grown at Ludhiana in Punjab and Hisar in Hariyana. Vaiety HSFH-848 performed better with seed yield (1702.1 and 1734.1 kg/ha) over the seed yield of HSFH-118. Data shows that oil content (37.7, 38.3%) was higher in the seeds of cultivar PSFH-118. Maximum plant height (164.6, 167.9 cm) recorded in HSFH-848 and head diameter (16.2-17.1 cm) was at par in both the varieties of hybrid sunflower.