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| United States |
| NORTH DAKOTA SUNFLOWER RESEARCH TEAM IS WORLD-RENOWNED |
| by Mikkel Pates |
| 24-Apr-2001 Knight-Ridder |
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FARGO, N.D.--If the Red River Valley Research Center is known for anything, it might be for its sunflower research. In recent years, the laboratory has been instrumental in producing NuSun, a so-called midoleic sunflower type that has revolutionized and revitalized the U.S. sunflower industry. Now, scientists at the laboratory are working on such things as herbicide-resistance for NuSun. "We have an excellent team here," says Jerry Miller, a research geneticist with the team. "We have a very interdisciplinary approach to things around here." Without genetically modifying the sunflower crop, the lab is developing hybrids that will be resistant to so-called "IMI" herbicides. That's short for the "imidazolinone class" of herbicides that kill broad-leaf weeds. Unlike genetically modified crops, IMI-class resistant sunflowers were naturally occurring genetic mutations discovered by Kansas state researchers in a Kansas soybean field in the fall of 1996. "The farmer had applied an IMI herbicide to his soybean field seven years in a row and naturally selected resistant plants," Miller says. "He serendipitously selected naturally resistant plants." The most common trade name for an IMI class herbicide is Raptor. "Raptor primarily controls the broadleaf weeds that are a production problem for sunflower," Miller says. "If you tank mix Raptor with one of the grass herbicides (Poast, Assure II or Select), that's about as close as you can get to Roundup Ready sunflowers." "This means that farmers moving into minimum-till or no-till sunflowers don't have to use Treflan or Sonalan (trifluralins), or a pre-emergence herbicide," Miller says. "That's important." "We're moving west with sunflowers due to higher rainfall, into the historically drier areas," Miller says. "Sunflower is very drought-tolerant in the first place." Sunflower is becoming more common in places like southwest North Dakota, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Growers are successful growing sunflowers there in either a three- or four-year rotation. "The whole thing keys on tillage," Miller says. "You don't want to disturb the soil." Treflan must be incorporated 4 to 6 inches into the soil, costing energy -- and moisture. In some of the irrigated areas in those states, water is becoming extremely expensive to pump. Farmers are looking favorably on sunflowers, which might only be irrigated three or four times a summer, as opposed to corn, which needs irrigation once a week. With the relatively high rainfall in recent years, sunflower acreage has been lost in places like the eastern third of North Dakota. In the southeast corner of the state, for example, farmers have shifted to soybeans as annual rainfall climbed to 33 inches in the 2000 growing year. "We don't know if it's global warming," Miller says. "We're as perplexed as anybody about what's happening." All of this has significant implication on research. "Surveys of farmers on production problems in two out of the last three years indicated the problem was broadleaf control." The problem in 1999, on the other hand, was sclerotinia. In 1999, a devastating sclerotinia head rot disease problem was the result of hurricane action on the East Coast that produced a stationary weather front and a 7-inch rain in early September in the Northern Plains. "It came during the most vulnerable time for sunflowers -- after flowering and before harvest," Miller says. "We had a $70 million loss in our industry, and we lost a lot of farmers in that period of time." Now, the largest research project at the Red River lab is in sclerotinia head rot resistance. USDA scientists cooperate with researchers in Carrington with a mist irrigation system to induce the disease and screen potential commercial hybrids. One NDSU graduate student is working on a genetic inheritance study. "We have a biological control agent -- `Contains' -- that attacks sclerotinia in the soil. Still another potential control agent is sporodesmium," Miller says. "Sunflower is not the only crop that is devastated by sclerotinia," Miller says. It also is a major problem for dry edible beans, soybeans and canola. "We've asked for a federal funding initiative for research in sclerotinia, similar to the scab initiative for wheat," Miller says. "This is really going to be exciting." Biogenetic research would involve a large number of researchers and could include molecular marker-assisted selection, Miller says. Miller says one of his satisfactions as a researcher is that any of his discoveries are given to the industry -- free of charge. "There are no royalties, no PVP (plant variety protection), no patents, none of that," Miller says. "And it's not just free to our industry, it's free worldwide." |
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