Research

Oilseed sunflowers are used in bird food and the crushing industry for sunflower oil, producing one of the highest quality vegetable oils. Sunflower meal usually contains 35% of protein and is used in livestock feed. The main research gap to be addresses in this project is helping breeders evaluate the genetic and environmental (GxE) factors that influence amino acid composition and protein quality of sunflower seeds and meal using Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, a highly promising method for rapid prediction of sunflower seed protein nd amino acid contents.

Objectives

1. Develop NIRS calibration equations for dehulled sunflower and defatted sunflower meal to predict protein, moisture and amino acid content.
2. Determine the impact of GxE effects over 3 cropping years on protein quality parameters and associate with other available agronomic data