Individual and group of seeds of some sunflower populations were utilized in order to evaluate the feasibility of oil content evaluations by the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance method (NMR). Correlation analysis with the extractive method ("Soxhlet) was performed. The results showed that: 1) the oil in the seeds behaved like a liquid in the NMR analysis; 2) there was a high and positive correlation (r = 0.93) between NMR and "Soxhlet" and data obtained by NMR were statistically higher than those obtained by "Soxhlet"; 3) there was no correlation between seed weight and oil content; 4) the observed variability in oil content among seeds of a plant were higher than between plants of a population; these values indicate the importance of making individual analysis of oil content by the NMR method for the sunflower breeding for oil content.
sunflower; Helianthus annuus L.; oil content; NMR; Soxhlet