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From humble beginnings, successful sunflower breeding has evolved in Hungary. Péter Streb has been there since day one and is now Senior Breeder.

Péter Streb

Following the sun

Péter Streb travels the world for KWS from Hungary to breed the best sunflower hybrids. He has cherished the plant from his childhood – and he has ambitious goals.

Hardly any chemicals are used on sunflowers in order to protect insects.

Péter Streb spent the summer vacations of his childhood in Hungarian corn and sunflower fields. Bright yellow flower heads facing the sun, endless blue skies an image that was to remain etched in his memory. Péter supplemented his pocket money with a vacation job in this ambiance. In any case, agriculture was deeply rooted in his family, even though it lost its farm under the communist regime. And the fascination remained: Péter studied animal breeding, later agricultural sciences, and is currently working on his doctorate.

But the sunflower fields of his childhood never let go of him: He worked for Monsanto and Syngenta in sunflower breeding, spending two years at each company. When the chance arose in 2011 to expand this field of breeding at KWS in Hungary, Péter did not think twice. He had to build a team and organize the breeding program at locations in Europe and Latin America. The first preparations took place in a garage. “We began from square one and built everything from scratch. It was a unique opportunity,” he says of his start at KWS. Pioneering spirit? Yes, he probably has it in him, he admits with a laugh.

“We work particularly closely with nature in growing sunflowers.”

Péter Streb

Important crop in times of climate change

Today, he is convinced that the importance of sunflowers in agriculture is growing. “They enrich farmers’ crop rotation and ensure greater sustainability. And due to climate change, they will become an increasingly interesting crop in Europe.” With its deep roots, the plant is more drought- and heat-tolerant than oilseed rape, for example. And even if its traditional cultivation areas are mainly in Ukraine, Russia and other Southeastern European countries, it is now also gaining in importance in Central European countries.

New eating habits are also contributing to that: Research is currently being carried out into ways of using the high protein content of sunflower seeds for plant-based foods. Péter talks about KWS’ collaboration with several universities in Germany aimed at producing sunflower varieties that have a particularly high protein content and seeds that are easy to shell.

However, most of Péter’s sunflower breeding work revolves around varieties for producing oil. “Sunflower can deliver around 2.5 tons of oil per hectare,” he says, and he names his most important breeding objectives: “We select for different characteristics like yield or heat tolerance.”

Video

Valuable

In the video, Péter Streb tells us when he expects KWS to start selling its own sunflower hybrids.

Pollinated by insects instead of the wind

What particularly appeals to Péter about sunflower breeding compared to traditional crops is the means of pollination. Unlike cereals, which are wind- or self-pollinated, sunflowers are pollinated by insects such as bees or bumblebees. “We work particularly closely with nature in growing sunflowers. You can’t use many chemicals because we have to protect the insects.”

Péter and his team want to make sure that the flowers produce as much nectar and pollen as possible so that they are also attractive to pollinators. That is because without bees, 30 percent of the harvest can be lost, or even all of it in the case of some varieties. “Strictly speaking, the sunflower is not a single flower,” says the breeder. Its head consists of around 400 to 1,000 individual flowers. All of them have to be pollinated in order to produce seeds.

“To ensure that the sunflowers in the breeding areas are not pollinated by pollen from neighboring sunflower fields, we place our parent lines in tents to produce hybrids and we use bumblebees,” says the 44-year-old, explaining the process. “To create lines, we tie nets around each individual flower head. We don’t use bumblebees or bees here, but manual pollination.”

“Look at the plant. It’s simply beautiful.”

Péter Streb

Good collaboration with Einbeck

Now it is time to observe and test whether the crossings exhibit the desired genes and traits. To find out, tens of thousands of sunflower leaf samples a year are sent to the laboratory in Einbeck. Péter praises this collaboration: “If we are lacking certain traits, we can rely on the biotechnological expertise of our colleagues in Einbeck. We are also in close contact with our station in Gran Canaria, where we cross resistances into new lines.”

Péter regularly travels around the globe to test around 5,000 sunflower lines a year, spending 80 to 100 days a year at the breeding stations in Latin America and Europe. “It’s curious: We ship the sunflower, which originates from America, back home from Europe for breeding, only to then return the bred varieties to Europe,” says the breeder with a grin. The constantly high temperatures in Latin America offer ideal conditions for sunflower breeding. “While only one harvest a year is possible in Europe, we can pack three vegetation periods into one year at our winter breeding stations. That slashes the time needed for breeding: from six to two years.”

Péter Streb and his team aim to make KWS the world’s third-largest sunflower breeder by 2031.

Becoming world leaders with sunflower

It quickly becomes clear how the modest beginnings have evolved into a highly professional breeding program. And even after more than a decade of breeding sunflowers at KWS, Péter is still proving his perseverance: In March, he was promoted to Senior Breeder for sunflowers.

That great commitment will hopefully pay off soon. Farmers all over Europe will benefit from a big flow of high performing sunflower hybrids with highest trait profile coming from our breeding program. Yet Péter not only has a pioneering spirit, but also has great ambitions: By 2031, he and his team want KWS to have a five percent market share with its sunflower varieties, making it the world’s fourth-largest sunflower breeder. “In the long term, however, nobody wants to remain in fourth place. We aim to take KWS sunflowers to the top,” says the breeder.

Large population: Around 5,000 sunflower lines are tested annually in Europe.

Péter Streb removes the nectar using a thin glass pipette in order to weigh it.

Péter certainly enjoys the process. After all, he needs one thing above all else for his varied work: creativity. He compiles manuals, devises complex concepts, has to make selections and constantly re-evaluate his work. He is not lost for innovative ideas: “Once we’ve achieved one goal, we’re already taking the next step.” For example, Péter and his colleagues are currently experimenting with how to reduce the use of herbicides with catch crops and thus make cultivation of sunflowers more sustainable.

He sees excellent prospects for sunflower breeding and is delighted that the plant is considered a strategically relevant crop at KWS. And even after all these years, Péter cannot get enough of the yellow fields in the morning light. Why has he taken a particular liking to sunflowers? “Look at the plant. It’s simply beautiful.” |


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