A Seed Fatty Acid Profiling Study of Wild Sunflower Species.

Wild Sunflower Species: A Seed Fatty Acid Profiling Study.

 Scott Radi¹, James Gerdes¹, Tom Patterson², Josh Flook², Brita McNew², & Ted Freeman.
¹Dow AgroSciences, Breckenridge, MN 56520.  ²Dow AgroSciences, Indianapolis, IN 46268.
E-mail: SaRadi@Dow.Com
 Abstract

 The sunflower (Helianthus) genus contains 50 species with 14 annual and 36 perennial species.   Wild sunflower species have shown great genetic variability which has been utilized to introgress favorable agronomic characteristics into commercial sunflower germplasm.  Certain Helianthus niveus, H. petiolaris and H. deserticola accessions have high concentrations of oil and several H. annuus accessions have low concentrations of saturated palmitic and stearic fatty acid levels.
                  The objective of this study was to characterize the fatty acid composition of achene oil from 376 accessions from 24 wild sunflower species obtained from the USDA-ARS Northern Crop Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa.