The ProSun project aims to make sunflowers economically competitive in Germany and throughout the EU. The aim is to diversify its potential uses and to increase and secure its yield potential.

Sunflowers are one of our most important oil crops and have the potential to become an important source of protein. It is already foreseeable today that in Europe a rapidly increasing demand for vegetable protein will be offset by only a small cultivation of protein plants and the dual use of sunflowers as an oil and protein source will greatly increase their attractiveness for cultivation.

Since selection progress is measured per unit of time, fast breeding cycles (speed breeding) for recombination and backcrossing processes using very fast and cost-effective marker analyses are indispensable today. The availability of these technologies is a key prerequisite for the success of ProSun. The establishment of speed breeding is therefore the focus of the LSA's work.