Comparative study of abiotic environmental factors in broomrape (Orebanche cumana Wallr.) infested and non-infested sunflower areas of Serbia and Argentina

In several main sunflower producing regions, the parasitic weed Orobanche cumana (Broomrape) is the most serious biotic crop constraint. This weed, native of the Caucasus region, has progressively migrated to all Eurasia. It causes high economic losses in the Black Sea region, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and Israel territories, where severely infested patches occur in close proximity of non-infested areas. Broomrape is absent in the extended sunflower crop area of Argentina in South America. The difference between invaded and not invaded areas could be related to agriculture practices or to environmental factors. It is widely accepted that abiotic environment parameters determine the geographic plant invader distribution. It is unknown if this could be the case of this noxious sunflower parasitic plant. The influence of 14 environmental factors on the geographical distribution of broomrape was studied. We collected geographic, climatic and edaphic information from 15 sunflower habitats of Serbia with different natural infestation levels and 25 Argentine habitats without infestation. The latter group was constituted by nine natural habitats of ruderal H. annuus and 16 sites of sunflower cultivar field trials