Sunflower scenario in India

An attempt had been made to study the growth rates of area, production and productivity of sunflower in India for a period of 22 years (1983–84 to 2004–05). Though the area, production and productivity had shown an overall a declining trend yet the phase wise trend was somewhat different like during phase I sunflower production increased by 264.71 percent on the basis of triennium average whereas the same had decreased by 16.94 percent during phase II. As per the result of the present study, the area had changed positively by 68.33 percent and worked out to be the highest as compared to productivity 10.26 percent and interaction effect 21.4 percent on the sunflower production. Moreover, the fluctuations in sunflower production and its productivity were also found to be more, which need to be stabilized. Thus instead of enhancing sunflower acreage our main motive should be to increase the productivity with the adoption of latest technology and using good quality of certified seed of high yielding varieties of sunflower.