Dissecting the Genetic Architecture of Morphological Traits in Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus L.)

Sunflower is a member of the Helianthus genus from the Compositae (Asteraceae) family, a diploid crop with 2n=34 chromosomes. It is native to North America and was initially domesticated by Native Americans in the East Central region of the US. Today, sunflower has been one of the most important oil crops in the world. It has been cultivated around the globe on every continent except for Antarctica providing more than 13% of the total edible oil globally. The genetic mechanisms controlling the variation of yield-related traits in sunflower have been studied using many approaches. However, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have not been widely applied to sunflower. In this project, the genetic architecture of some yield-related sunflower traits was evaluated, and trait-marker association results identified by GWAS were reported