Our lab is proud to release a new sunflower line, RHA 476. It has the potential to be the best line available in western Canada. Check out the release below, along with the performance data table at the bottom:
USDA has been working with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on development and evaluation of sunflower lines and hybrids for the western Canadian prairies. We have been successful in developing an inbred line (RHA 476) that has superior yield potential and good oil content consistently in western Manitoba and throughout Saskatchewan. This line is potentially very valuable to this region, so we have decided to put extra care in its release. We are conducting line purification procedures using molecular markers and phenotyping of the oil profile, since this is a high oleic line (89-90 % oleic acid last year). Breeders seed can be made available for seeding this summer after the genomic analysis is complete in the next month.
Below is the meta-analysis of yield, oil %, and agronomic traits across 7 environments in two years in Saskatchewan. Additional data from NSAC in western MB indicates similar trends of superiority to this environment. The hybrid ‘Honeycomb NS’ is a testcross of CM 595A (released by Walter Dedio of AAFC) with RHA 476. For the sake of comparison, the hybrid ‘AC60’ uses the same female, CM 595A. RHA 476 is currently proprietary to USDA-ARS. X320 is another candidate for release.
We are currently working with stakeholders to make seed available through MTRAs.
For further information on this opportunity, please contact Brent Hulke to discuss.
