Performance and Water-Use Efficiency of Wild Cytoplasmic Sources in Sunflower

Abstract Wild Helianthus species should have be a main interest sunflower breeding for the introgressing elite genes for biotic and abiotic stress. The future use of wild sunflower in development of drought resistance cytoplasmic sources should be expanded to the wide range of wild species as compared to conventional sources. The objective of this study was to evaluate different parental lines for their water-use efficiency and seed yield performance under two environments for two years. ARG-2A received from H. argophyllus, 234A and 38A from H. petiolaris were found to be the most susceptible genotypes, whereas, 42A, 42B from H. petiolaris and ARG-6A (H. argophyllus) were found to be tolerant to drought stress. CMS-XA, RCR-8297, E002-91A, NC-41B and P124R were observed to be well adapted to stress environments. ARG-3A from H. argophyllus had a stable performance over the environments, which may be useful to develop water use efficient hybrids having diversified cytoplasmic backgrounds in sunflower breeding.