The Black Sea region is very important and biggest sunflower cultivation area in Europe. The total planted area in 2017 is 9 million hectares: UA – 5,9 Mio ha, RO- 1,1 Mio ha, BG 0,9 Mio ha, TR- 0,6 Mio ha, MD- 0,3 Mio ha, RS- 0,2 Mio ha.
Sunflower is an increasingly popular choice in the rotation for farmers, however, this popularity brings with it growing pressure from the parasitic weed Orobanche Cumana (sunflower broomrape) a serious and fast mutating pest that has drawn a serious response from EURALIS.
Under the umbrella of the OR MASTER® brand, we have taken three main actions to offer Orobanche protection:
- Specifically, in 2014 the company launched a new technology under the OR MASTER® brand, introducing innovative genetics resistant to new Orobanche races and combinations of genetic resistance and Clearfield traits inside the same hybrids.
- In 2017 Euralis launched in Black Sea region OR Master Service program. This is special additional support to farmers for clear definition races of Orobanche Cumana in the farmers field based on set of different markers with different genetical resistance.
- Alongside this genetic and chemical protection, EURALIS offers a third weapon with its free OR MASTER® Smartphone application, available from Google Play and Apple’s App Store.
This allows farmers to choose the best adapted varieties to fight the races of Orobanche in their fields.
