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→Discovery of a male-sterility character in France
=== Discovery of a male-sterility character in France ===
In the second half of the twentieth century, Europe (and France in particular) began to invest in the research of "metropolitan" oilseeds, because it could no longer count on colonial oils. In 1969, at the INRA research station in Clermont-Ferrand, the French scientist Patrice Leclercq discovered a cytoplasmic male sterility trait by hybridizing a sunflower with ''[[Helianthus petiolaris]]'' Nuttall. This event allowed an easy production of F1 hybrid seeds. This trait is now used all over the world, and global sunflower production has doubled since. Sunflowers has even returned come back to North America, to be cultivated as a cash crop for the first time.
Read [[:fr:Piante da fiori d'ornamento (Targioni-Tozzetti, Cenni)#Helianthus annuus|Targioni-Tozzetti (1853)]], [[Gray & Trumbull, 1883. Review of DeCandolle's Origin of Cultivated Plants. Part 1#Helianthus annuus|Gray & Trumbull (1883)]] and [[Helianthus (Sturtevant, 1919)|Sturtevant (1919)]] articles.
