Hybrid CO₂-A high yielding sunflower hybrid for Tamil Nadu

The importance of hybrids in sunflower has increased recently because of their higher seed yield compared with cross-pollinated varieties. Hybrids of sunflower are more stable, highly self-fertile, with high yield performance, and more uniform at maturity. Hybrid CO2 has been released as a high yielding sunflower hybrid suitable for Tamil Nadu during 2010. This hybrid was tested in station trials, Multi-Location Trial, Adaptive Research Trial, AICRP trials and On Farm Trials. Based on the overall performance, this hybrid has the potential of 1950 and 2230 kg/ha seed yield under kharif and rabi/summer situations respectively. The yield increase over Sunbred 275 and TCSH 1 are 13.4 and 17.1 per cent respectively under kharif conditions. Similarly, in rabi/summer conditions, this hybrid out yielded Sunbred 275 and TCSH 1 by 12.9 and 15.9 per cent respectively. This hybrid has high oil content of 39.8 per cent on seed basis and high volume weight (48 g/100 ml).