Due to a specific structure of its main organs (root, stem, leaves, and head), sunflower can be successfully grown on marginal soils and in semiarid conditions, and it is more resist‐ ant to abiotic stresses, than other field crops. Unfortunately, it is very sensitive to biotic stresses. In sunflower breeding for resistance to abiotic stresses, the greatest progress has been made in selection f...

Broomrapes (Orobanche and Phelipanche species) are holoparasitic weeds that infect roots of crop hosts from Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Apiaceae, Fabaceae, Solanaceae. The parasitic difficult to control selectively without damage once attached their roots. Identification natural compounds with herbicidal activity against pre-attached broomrape stages can provide alternatives. With the aim identif...

 Background and aims: Most of the economically relevant parasitic weeds of the Orobanchaceae have a more or less broad host spectrum within the plant family they are adapted to. The hostreleased compounds inducing their germination were identified as so-called strigolactones and represent four-ring terpenoids derived from the carotenoid metabolism. O. cumana, a fast emerging problem of sunflow...