Great Plains Sunflower Variety Trials from 1978 to 2012

Aggregated data from sunflower variety trials conducted across multiple locations, primarily in North Dakota and South Dakota, from 1978 to 2012. It provides standardized performance data for commercial hybrids, covering oilseed and confection market types under irrigated and dryland conditions.

Use Cases

• Analyze genotype-by-environment interactions using yield, oil content, and geographic coordinates across trial locations.
• Model the relationship between phenology variables like days to flowering and physiological maturity with final yield and seed weight.
• Compare agronomic performance metrics such as test weight and plant height between irrigated and dryland management conditions.
• Investigate long-term breeding trends by examining yield and oil content trends from 1978 to 2012 for commercial hybrids.

Strengths

• Data spans 34 years of trials from 1978 to 2012, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Includes multiple key agronomic and phenology variables such as yield, oil content, days to flowering, and plant height.
• Covers trials under both irrigated and dryland conditions for oilseed and confection sunflower types.
• Provides geographic coordinates for trial locations, allowing for spatial analysis.

Limitations

• Specific row and column counts are unknown, limiting assessment of dataset scale and feature dimensionality.
• Data collection ended in 2012, so findings may not reflect current varieties or climatic conditions.
• Focus is primarily on North Dakota and South Dakota, which may limit generalizability to other sunflower-growing regions.

Provenance

Source

Department of Agriculture

Collection Method

Aggregated from standardized sunflower variety trials.

Time Range

1978 to 2012

Freshness

Data covers 1978-2012; metadata was last updated in February 2026.

Geography

Multiple locations in the Great Plains, primarily North Dakota and South Dakota.