Kansas put a sunflower on its flag and its nickname. So why do North Dakota and South Dakota grow almost all of America's sunflower seeds?
Sunflowers are native to North America. Native Americans grew them for food long before European settlers arrived — one of the few major crops born on this continent.
Basis: Established crop history: the sunflower was domesticated in North America.
Kansas's nickname honors the wild sunflowers that bloom along its roads — it's the official state flower. Wild flowers everywhere is not the same as seed farming.
Basis: Kansas state symbols: the wild native sunflower is the state flower.
The sunflower went on a world tour: explorers took it to Europe, and in Russia it was bred into the big, oil-rich variety. Those oil-type sunflowers came back to America — and they grow best in the cool northern plains of the Dakotas.
Basis: Well-documented crop history (USDA and university extension accounts).
Why the Dakotas and not Kansas? Farmers point to cooler summers, the right rainfall, and crop rotations that fit wheat country — but which factor matters most is hard to pin down exactly.
※ A hypothesis is an idea that isn't proven yet.
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