Sunflower breeding for different oil quality

Abstract

The sunflower is one of the four most important oil crops in the world. The common sunflower oil predominantly contains linoleic acid, followed by oleic, palmitic and stearic ones as well as some others that are found only in traces. As far as tocopherols are concerned, the predominant type are alpha tocopherols. Using sources for a high oleic acid content (Ol genes) and sources with genes tph₁ (50% alpha + 50% beta tocoph.), tph₂ (0–5% alpha + 95–100% gamma), and tph₁tph₂ (8–40% alpha + 0–25% beta + 25–84% gamma + 8–10% delta), the highly Phompsis-tolerant parental lines of the hybrids NS-H-45, NS-H-626, and NS-H-680 were translated into three isogenic forms. These have taken the following forms: a) Ol+tph₁; b) 01+tph₂; and c) 01+tph₁tph₂. In other words, three types of high-oleic oil with different tocopherol type and content have been obtained. Besides these isogenic lines, a number of oleic and linoleic B-lines with a different tocopherol composition have been developed as well. Also, we have developed a large number of high-oleic, high-oil restorer lines with different tocopherols. Some of these have a high level of tolerance to Phomopsis. The newly developed B- and Rf-lines can be used to develop new hybrids with different oil quality. Due to a synergy between Ol and tph genes, the oil oxistability of these new hybrids can be up to 20 times higher than in the common sunflower oil.