GENERATION OF LINES AND SYNTHETIC HIGH-OLEIC VARIETIES OF SUNFLOWER BY RECURRENT AND MOLECULAR SELECTION

Abstract

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is native to Central and Northern Mexico, the United States and Southern Canada; however, the Mexican oil industry imports 95 % of the grain from Argentina, the United States and Canada. The market demands high-oleic type oil for its health benefits and stability during frying, thus, companies promote contract farming for planting to interested producers; however, since high-oleic Mexican varieties have not been generated, the farmer must assume a high cost for the use of hybrid seed from transnational corporations. Therefore, the objective of this study was set to develop high-oleic varieties by applying molecular markers associated to the Pervenets mutation that causes the Ol genotype and the high-oleic phenotype. For this purpose, the breeding method called recurrent selection among self-fertilized progenies (SREPA) was applied. With this methodology, 54 high-oleic S4 lines and synthetic varieties of early, intermediate and late cycle were obtained, which were evaluated in four municipalities and five environments. The results showed yield of up to 3.4 t ha^-1 and oleic oil percentage between 90.1 and 93.1%, comparable to the best high oleic commercial hybrids used as controls.