In February 2025, HelEx started sharing its first results with the sunflower industry at a SELEOPRO session bringing together breeders and agronomists working on sunflower across Europe. The setting was particularly suited to technical discussions with professionals directly involved in varietal development and seed production.
C. Coussy (Maïsadour) presented HelEx on behalf of the consortium and introduced the early results emerging from the project, including the scope of genetic resources and phenotyping activities. The talk was accompanied by exchanges on how industry partners can contribute to and benefit from HelEx outputs.
For HelEx, regularly sharing progress with breeding companies is part of the project’s strategy to make sure its results are immediately relevant to the sector. The earlier the industry engages with HelEx, the faster innovations can be integrated into varietal pipelines aimed at climate-resilient and pollinator-aware sunflower cropping.
