Sunflowers are not currently a crop here in Senegal. However, given our 3 month, 500-600 mm rainy season, I think they might be an option for us as a rain-fed crop for oil production. I’m looking for advice from those of you that have experience with this crop in the tropics or sub-tropics. Specifically:
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What varieties would you recommend that perform well with at 30-35 C with high humidity and are early maturing (<100 days)?
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There seems to be a lot of hybrid seed used in the sunflower industry. Have you seen acceptable returns with open-pollinated varieties?
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How do farmers in your area deal with bird pressure as the sunflowers mature?
I welcome any general recommendations you might have for trialing this crop, or mistakes to avoid when growing sunflowers in these conditions. We’ve successfully grown sunflowers here as an irrigated crop in the cool season, but never rain-fed. Thanks!
Noah
Sunflowers are a cash crop in our area (Central Tanzania, ~4 months rainy season from December to April with little rains in February, ~500mm - if everything goes well, we only had around 250mm this year).
Birds are a problem. If a lot is planted, then it is o.k., as the birds can’t eat everything, but as we normally plant earlier than others, and only on demonstration plots, we have a hard time dealing with them (as there isn’t any other food yet so they all come to our place… 
Sunflowers are a hardy crop, I’d say. Sometimes they even grow well into the dry season without any irrigation, so they should definitely work for you.
Mulching helps a lot. Sunflowers grow much bigger heads with mulching.
In our area they are either planted as cash crop on big scale, or by substistent farmers in mixed agriculture together with millet and cow peas. Both works.
Again, mulching is important. Our millet is a lot less affected by smut when mulched, all crops grow better, peanuts have a much higher harvest etc. We plant vetiver grass strips as mulching material. They also help with maize stem borer (push-pull method).
@Tim_Emily_Tanner have extensive experience with growing sunflower as an oil crop in Southern Tanzania. In a previous request via email, they gave the following recommendations about variety and other sunflower growing tips and have given me permission to share it here:
My recommendation is a sunflower seed called “Record”. Record is an Open Pollinated Variety (OPV). At KT we only promote OPVs as our goal is to empower the small scale farmer who is unable to buy high-breeds every year due to cost. Record is properly named as it yields a record amount of harvest. We usually buy our certified seed from ASA, but there are others. If all your neighbors (5K radius [flight distance of the average honey bee]) are also growing Record then you can save this years seed for next year repeatedly and still get good yield year after year. If you cannot guarantee that your neighbors are also using Record then save seed only from the very middle of your harvest. Depending on the size of your field (distance to nearest non-Record variety) you can normally still keep this seed for two harvests and after that you should start over with certified Record again.
Soak your seeds in water 6-12 hours before planting (assuming you are planning by hand). This jump starts germination and changes the smell of the seed and significantly discourages rats and field mice from finding a fee dinner.
If you are going to grow sunflower, then you should seriously consider beekeeping. When we started growing Sunflower we read research that showed you could get up to 25%-30% more harvest just by having 1 bee colony per acer (2.5 colonies per hectare). We have truly see the practical value in this. Bees, as you know, are the best pollinators. One sunflower head can have thousands of flowers and each one individually needs pollinated or all you will crow is a shell which produces no oil. Bees are the best pollinators. Even if you never harvest the honey, you will increase your kilos of sunflower harvest significantly. So absolutely raise bees if you grow sunflower even if you never buy all the equipment to harvest honey. Use simply top bar (Kenya V style) boxes. Simple to make, bate and put around your farm. Bees have a funny way of keeping away thieves as well. If you hang your boxes, grease the wires. If you put you boxed on stilts, grease the legs.
Sunflower is a very good cash crop and especially post the Ukraine war.
However, do your research ahead of time (before investment). Know your available market and transport cost to that market and even potential secondary market. Calculate backwards to figure out how much to plant to make it worth your troubles. If you can find a processor near you, some processor will process for free (or nearly so) if you leave them the seed cake and then you market the oil under your own label. Makes more money this way, but then you have to take on the burden of marketing your own oil.
Sunflower is a high nitrogen needing plant. Make sure to fallow the fields with a good legume. Sunflower is also a Striga fatal germinator. So you if you have grain fields with Striga issues, rotating sunflower in that field is good. But since it’s also a high nitrogen consumer, this rotation would not be considered a fallow for the field.
At KT we also encourage high bio diversification. So we like to plant sunflower and cow peas (and or pigeon pea) together. You can grow all three at the same time. Plant pigeon pea (also a Striga fatal germinator) and sunflower in alternating rows. Then on the ground plant cow pea in the shade. Don’t be afraid of over stressing the field for moisture if you have good mulching and/or cover crops you will save the moisture from sun & wind evaporation and you will be OK. The more variety of plants you can grow at one time on the same field the healthier and more in balance the microorganisms are. Next year swap rows and you can do this for a long time without fertilization or fallow since your effectively fallowing every other row each year.
Blessings,
Tim
Additionally, They shared some photos and videos of recent sunflower harvesting I can ask them to forward to you if they would be helpful.
