Introduction
 
SUNFLOWER BASIC

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Introduction

Sunflower popularly known as `Surajmukhi", is a familiar plant in India. The plant was traditionally grown for its ornamental value. However, presently sunflower is mainly grown for its oil. The oil is used for culinary purposes, in the preparation of vanaspati and in the manufacture of soaps and cosmetics. It is especially recommended for heart patients. Its cake is rich in protein and is used as a cattle and poultry feed. Sunflower holds great promise because of its short duration, photo-insensitivity, and wide adaptability and drought tolerance. It can be grown at any time of the year and can serve as an ideal catch crop during the periods when land is otherwise left fallow. The oil of sunflower is light yellow in colour and possesses good odour which can be used for a variety of cooking purposes like any other edible oil. The oil is also used for manufacturing hydrogenated oil. Sunflower seed oil can be expelled easily with the existing machinery in the country including simplest process of `village ghani’. Sunflower oil is a rich source (64%) of linoleic acid which helps in washing out cholesterol deposition in the coronary arteries of the heart and thus is good for heart patients. Oil is also used in the manufacture of soaps and cosmetics. The oil cake contains 40-44 per cent high quality protein. It is ideally suited for poultry and livestock rations. It can also be used for manufacturing baby foods. The sunflower kernels can be eaten raw or roasted.

 
Area Under Cultivation
The area under sunflower crop is on the increase due to its wide adaptability, short duration, high field potential, remunerative price and good quality edible oil. Being day neutral, the crop is cultivated year round in all 3 cropping seasons.
 
Season

The crop requires a cool climate during germination and seedling growth. Seedlings tolerate frosts moderately well until they reach the four to six leaf stage of development. It requires warm weather from the seedling stage up to flowering stage and warm and sunny days during flowering to maturity. High humidity accompanied with cloudy weather and rainfall at the time of flowering results in poor seed set. The amount of linoleic acid decreases with high temperatures at maturity. Sunflower is a photo-insensitive crop, therefore, it can be grown successfully in any season viz., Kharif, Rabi and spring throughout India. It takes about 80-90 days in Kharif, 105-130 days in Rabi and 100-110 days in spring season. Sunflower, unlike most other crops, is not affected with the season and day length. With the exception of freezing temperatures, the sowing of sunflower can be done in any month of the year. However, experimental results have shown that the optimum time of sowing of sunflower in the north for Kharif, Rabi and Zaid crops is the first fortnight of July, second fortnight of October and the first fortnight of March, respectively. Sowing sunflower earlier or later than these periods is disadvantageous to this crop. If Kharif crop of sunflower is sown in June, it suffers from lodging, as heading stage coincides with the heavy rain period of early September. The Rabi crop sown late in December or January does not make proper germination and growth and heads of smaller size are produced. Similarly Zaid crop sown late in April suffers from heavy rains at harvest time which hampers proper harvesting and threshing of the produce.

 
Soil
Sunflower can be grown on a wide range of soils and tolerates a moderate pH range and some salinity. It thrives best on deep loam soils with good drainage and irrigation facilities. The optimum range of soil pH for this crop is 6.5 to 8.5. It performs better than groundnut in heavy black cotton soils of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
 

Rotation
Sunflower is grown in rotation with several crops. Some of the important crop rotations are as given below:

  1. Maize-sunflower
  2. Paddy-sunflower
  3. Maize-potato-sunflower
  4. Arhar (ageti)-sunflower
  5. Sunflower-safflower
  6. Maize-toria-sunflower
  7. Maiz-toria-sugarcane-ratoon-sunflower
 
Cultivation
Sunflowers require a well pulverized and weed free land with adequate moisture supply. The first ploughing should be done by the mould-board plough and subsequently two to three ploughing could be done by local plough followed by planking. There should be sufficient moisture at the time of sowing for proper germination. Under irrigated conditions where sunflower seeds have thick hulls and imbibe water at a slow rate. It is, therefore, necessary to ensure sufficient moisture for proper germination at the time of sowing.
 
Sowing
The seed before sowing should be treated with Captan or Ceresan at the rate of 3 g per kg of seed. Bold and certified seeds should be used. A seed rate of 8-10 kg per hectare is sufficient to ensure good crop stand, Sunflower should be sown 60 cm apart in lines with a plant to plant spacing of 20 cm. The seed should be sown at 3-4 cm depth for better stand. Sowing can be done by corn planter in the furrows. After 10-12 days of germination, extra seedlings should be uprooted to provide a space of 20 cm between plants in rows.
 

Fertilizer Management

Sunflower is an exhaustive crop and responds well to nitrogen phosphorus and potash. A crop of sunflower yielding 14 quintals of grain per hectare exhausts 175 kg N, 65 kg P2O5 and 225 kg K2O from one hectare land. Therefore, it is necessary to add adequate amount of manure and fertilizers in the field of sunflower. Nitrogen is essential for vegetative growth but to improve the seed size and its proper filling and to increase oil content liberal supply of phosphorus is essential. Potash also helps in grain filling and disease resistance. A dose of 60-80 kg nitrogen, 60 kg P2O5 and 40 kg K2O per hectare has been found optimum for sunflower. Two-third quantity of nitrogen and whole of phosphorus and potash should be applied as basal dose at the time of sowing. Remaining dose of nitrogen should be top dressed at the time of second irrigation (flowering stage).

 
Water Management
Sunflower is a crop of medium water requirement. Usually no irrigation is needed for Kharif crop. However, one irrigation should be given in case of uneven distribution of rainfall. Pre-sowing irrigation is necessary for Rabi and Zaid crops to get uniform germination and better stand. Rabi crop may be irrigated thrice after 40, 75 and 110 days of sowing which will roughly coincide to four to five leaf stage, flowering and grain filling stages of the crop. Sunflower crop is highly sensitive to water stress between flowering and grain filling stages and at least one of the irrigation must be applied during this period.
 

Harvesting

The sunflower crop is ready for harvest when moisture in seed is 20 per cent. Phenotypic ally the heads are ripe when back of the head turns yellowish-brown. All heads may not be ready for harvesting at one time. Harvesting may, therefore, by done in two or three installments to avoid shattering. The harvested heads should be dried well in sun and then only threshes by beating the centre of the head with a small stick. The commercial crop may be threshed with available threshers by reducing their speed. Further, sun-drying of the seed is desirable before storage or oil extraction. Moisture in seed should not exceed ten per cent.