Breeding sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) for drought tolerance

Productivity of sunflower is strongly regulated by the availability of water and greatest yield losses occur when water shortage occurs at flowering. Therefore, it is critical to manage the deleterious effect of drought stress at this stage. Evolving crop genotypes which have enhanced drought tolerance are the most successful and cheapest strategy to cope with drought. However, progress in drought tolerance breeding is slow due to inappropriate selection criteria and faulty breeding strategies. Therefore, utility of potential physiological and morphological traits in drought stress breeding are discussed and progress in sunflower drought tolerance breeding at the molecular level is reviewed.