The development of human society in general depends and is conditioned by the presence of fresh water resources. Certainly, the main cause, which has led to the ascending curve of current needs and consumption, is determined by the demographic explosion and the rapid urbanization process. Therefore, industry and agriculture are among the biggest consumers of water. The real problem is not lack of resources but effective distribution and overall management it is. In the context of the aforementioned, at NARDI Fundulea was developed in 2010 a program to improve drought resistance and obtain new genotypes through introgression of resistance genes from Helianthus argophyllus species in cultivated specie (Helianthus annuus L.) (Project MAKIS, Financed by the World Bank). Helianthus argopyllus is the most interesting species with very pubescent leaves, moderate transpiration and good photosynthetic activity. These characters provide superior water use efficiency compared to cultivated species. For these reasons, it has been used in our research to achieve the above-mentioned goal. In this project, at NARDI Fundulea has successfully used interspecific immature embryo culture to obtain drought-resistant genotypes and shortening the breeding process by getting two to three generations/year. Starting with the BC6 generation of self-pollination, the resulted fertile lines (B, maintainer lines) were cross polinated with an androsterility source in order to produce the sterile analogues of these lines (all being B, maintenance, fertile) were performed. After 4-5 generations of sterile plant selection, sterile analogue lines for each of the new creations were obtained. After this, new sunflower hybrids were obtained using certain fertility restoration lines from the NARDI Fundulea collection. The new hybrids were tested in three very different locations and years in terms of rainfall and temperatures during sunflower vegetation (2014-2015-2016). Based on the results we can conclude that interspecific hybridization may be an additional technique in the breeding of the sunflower and can be successfully used to create new sources of genetic variability to improve germplasm for drought and pathogens resistance. The newly created genotypes have responded positively to testing under different climatic and soil conditions and can be included in the approval list for both classical and ecological culture conditions.
