Phrasia Mapfumo

Home All issues Volume 33 (2026) OCL, 33 (2026) 18 Full HTML Issue OCL Volume 33, 2026 Oilseeds and protein crops in Africa: feedback from experience and new perspectives / Les oléoprotéagineux en Afrique : retours d'expérience et nouvelles perspectives Article Number 18 Number of page(s) 14 DOI https://doi.org/10.1051/ocl/2026010 Published online 24 April 2026 OCL 2026, 33, 18 Research Article Sunflower seed yield and quality stabilize across planting dates during hot, dry seasons under...

1 Introduction South Africa is the 13th largest producer of sunflower (Helianthus annuus) in the world, and it is the fourth most important grain crop in the country after maize, wheat and soybean (Meyer et al. 2021). Sunflower production is often limited by diseases caused by fungal and bacterial pathogens. Fungal pathogens such as Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Rothmann and McLaren 2022), Alternaria alternata (Kgatle et al. 2018) and Puccinia helianthi (Meyer et al.

1 INTRODUCTION Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is the Republic of South Africa's (RSA) third most important crop (after maize and soybean), where the RSA is a major sunflower-producing country in south-eastern Africa (Pilorgé, 2020) and ranks 15th globally (FAOSTAT, 2022). Sunflower is mostly grown under dryland conditions in the summer rainfall regions of the country and is usually planted from November to January (Anonymous, 2009).