Sunflower hybrids were first developed in sunflower 60 years ago and with the discovery of cytoplasmic male sterility have become the main type of variety since 1970. Breeding programs use mostly pedigree, recurrent and backcross selection. The main characters selected for are seed yield, oil content and oil type, earliness, height, disease, insect and drought resistance. Except for a few major genes, until 1995, breeding depended only on phenotypic observations, but in the last 10 years genomics have improved knowledge of the genetics of quantitative characters and marker-assisted selection has started to become a practical tool.