Efficiency of selection of self-fertile sunflower biotypes in production of foundation and breeder seeds

The researches were conducted on fields of OOO NPO “Triumph”, the Matveevo-Kurgansky district of Rostov region and V.S. Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops, Krasnodar in 2017-2020. The purpose of the research was to develop methodology of selection of self-fertile sunflower genotypes in foundation and breeder seed production. Our work resulted in development of improved population Dobrynya plus. Middle self-fertility of this population at self-pollination was 13.7% vs. 5.2% of the initial variety (increased by 2.6 times), a ratio of the most valuable genotypes with amount of fully formed seeds more than 150 seeds per a plant increased from 13.5 to 26.4% (by 1.9 times). At the open flowering and free insect pollination, population Dobrynya plus does not differ by its economically valuable traits from the initial variety. But at the close flowering, without insects pollination, yield of the population Dobrynya plus was 0.93 t per ha vs. 0.52 t per ha of the initial variety (increase by 1.8 times). At selection of elite seeds from sunflower varietal populations for seed growing, the most perspective are the biotypes with high level of self-fertility which traits are held stable in the different environments. Improvement of sunflower variety by self-fertility does not lead to decreasing of its yield qualities by the main economically valuable traits. The obtained experimental data prove a prospectivity of researches directed on improvement of sunflower variety populations by self-fertility at production of foundation and breeder seeds and possibility to reach successful results.