Evaluation and Identification of Alternaria leaf spot resistant sunflower genotypes

All India coordinated sunflower entries belonging to advance hybrid trial were screened initially by infector row technique under field conditions followed by green house conditions by artificial inoculation during 2007 and 2008 for Alternaria leaf blight resistance. The study indicated that field screening alone is not dependable for assessing the disease resistance, especially when the disease pressure is less because of chances of disease escape. The present study clearly shows that green house assay is particularly useful when field screening is ineffective due to unfavourable environmental conditions or co-presence of other foliar pathogens.