The wild sunflowers collection in Novi Sad [Serbia]

Lowered genetic variability in the cultivated sunflower and use of interspecies hybridization in sunflower breeding were the main reasons to establish the wild species collection. Wild species were collected during collecting trips performed jointly by researchers from Novi Sad (Serbia) and Fargo (USA) from 1980 to 1991. A total of 917 accessions were gathered. Different numbers of species (1-37) and populations (52-384) were gathered in each trip and wild sunflower habitats were inspected in 6-21 US federal states. Presently, there are 21 perennial and 7 annual species in the collection, represented by 447 accessions. Seed reserves vary from a few seeds to several thousand per accession and all of them were produced in the period between 1998 and 2004. Several problems were encountered in the course of the establishment, maintenance and utilization of the collection. The collection of wild sunflower species has mostly been used for development of disease resistant or tolerant genotypes, new cms and Rf genes and for breeding of special-purpose hybrids.