DROUGHT EFFECTS ON YIELD TRAITS OF SOME SUNFLOWER INBRED LINES

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is the most important oil crop in Turkey with the preference of sunflower oil mostly and an increasing of vegetable oil deficit (4.3 billion $ in 2014). Despite of larger planting potential, low labor use and the government support, sunflower planting areas could not reach to desired level. The most important reason for that sunflower production can vary depending on the years due to extreme heat and drought in the growth period affected seed yield severely (for instance, 30-35% yield loss in 2012) as a summer crop. The study was conducted to determine the drought tolerance of some male inbred lines developed lately in National Sunflower Project conducting by Trakya Agriculture Research Institute (TARI). Based on the results under controlled conditions, some inbred lines exhibited positive responses in the research and some important yields affected less in these lines. While some inbred lines got lost 60% of the control in seed yield, some of them influenced less from drought stress about 9-10%. Drought tolerance of male inbred lines against stress conditions changed between 50-100% in 1000 seed weight and 70-100% in oil yield. However, oil content of inbred lines was not adversely influenced from drought stress; conversely, most of their oil content was increased in stress conditions.