Sunflowers: Their History and Associated Insect Community in the Northern Great Plains

The sunflower, Heliantbus annuus var. macrocarpus (DC.) Ckll., is the only row crop in the northern Great Plains that coexists with its native congeners, Because of this unique ecological situation, entomological, pathological, and ornithological problems have frequently developed in cultivated sunflowers. Most crops are most successfully cultivated in areas distant from their origin, isolated from the pest organisms with which they have evolved. Insects and pathogens, which move freely between the native plants and the cultivated crop, cause most production problems in sunflowers.