Hybrid seed production of sunflower

摘要

Hybrid seed is very critical but costly initial input which determines high productivity and net profits from this crop. Farmers are therefore, advised to produce their own sunflower hybrid seed. Sunflower is normally planted after harvesting of pototo crop in Punjab. Sunflower seeds are black in colour and contain 40-43 percent high quality oil which is used for manufacturing edible refined oil and vanaspati. In this crop hybrid cultivars have become very popular among the farmers because of their high productivity and uniform maturity which allows mechanical harvesting of the crop. In Punjab, sunflower was grown on 14.4 thousand hectares during the year 2011-12 with a total production of 25.8 thousand tones thus giving an average yield of 17.9 q/ha.