Integrated Pest Management

•  Insect Management 

•  Disease Management 

•  Weed Management 

•  Nematode Management 

•  Nutrient Disorder Management 

•  Resistant Varieties Information

•  Natural Enemy Information

•  IPM Modules

Agronomic Practices

Field Preparation

• Sunflower can be grown in a wide variety of soils.

• In general the soils with relatively high percentage of sand comparatively gives better results.

• The best suited soils for sunflower are neutral to moderately alkaline.

• Sunflower also requires a very good drainage because water logging is detrimental to its life cycle.

• The basic requirement of sunflower is a clean weed free and well pulverized seed bed for good germination and growth.

• Basic land preparation includes at least one ploughing by mould board plough followed by 2 harrowing.

• Ploughing should be done once in every two to three years.

• If the field is having weed problem then stale seed bed technique can be used.

• Let a heavy flush of weeds emerge and be destroyed with herbicide before sowing the crop, without any tillage on it.

• Most of the weeds seeds germinate from the top 5cm of soil surface in about a weeks time, these weed seedlings can be destroyed either with a contact herbicide or by shallow type tillage implement like a spike tooth harrow.

• In stale seed bed technique depending upon the availability of time and resources one or two flushes of weeds can be destroyed before planting of the crop.

Seed & Sowing

• Seed treatment is essential for protecting the crop from soil borne diseases during the early stage of the crop growth.

• Seeds should be treated wit the help of Brassicol or Agrosan GN or Thiram or Captan or Serasan at the rate of 3gm per kg of seed also care should be taken not to treat the pre treated seeds.

• If the seeds are pre soaked in water for about 10 to 12 hours and then dried in shade then the germination is enhanced.

Harvest

• Harvesting is one of the most important operation in the crop.
• Sunflower is harvested when the crop attains the physiological maturity stage.
• During this stage the crop head back turns light yellow to brown in colour.
• Maturity is not generally synchronous in the sunflower field, all the heads may not mature at the same time.
• Care should be taken so that only matured heads are collected and harvested.
• After harvesting the heads should be put in the field for drying purpose for about 5 to 6 days so that all the residual moisture can be drained out.
• This operation is done to prevent the seeds from deterioration and to facilitate threshing.