WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT THE EXHIBITION WITH PAINTINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS: SUNFLOWERS IN ALL ITS BEAUTY of Darja Kocjan Ačko, that will run from October 10th to December 31th in the reception hall of tropical greenhouse of University Botanic gardens Ljubljana, in working time of greenhouse, in October from Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 12:00 and from 15:00 to 18:00, and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00. And from November further from Monday to Friday from 11 AM to 5 PM, and Saturday and Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM. At the time of lectures and workshops in the Botanical Gardens is working time extended until the beginning of lecture or workshop.

The author of exhibition, dr. Darja Kocjan Ačko is the group leader for Field crop production on Department of Agronomy of Biotechnical faculty. Plants allure her from natural treatments of arable crops also to the brushes and painting canvases. She says, that she met at science and art uniting the American monograph Principles of Field Crop Production from year 2006, in which John H. Mârtin and his colleagues in the introductory chapter of The Art and Science of Crop Production are thinking, that the art can be precise as the science and the science can be spontaneous as the art. Impressed by connecting of science and art she believed that every co-operation and uniting is better than competition and separation. In recent years following of Van Gogh was created Vases with sunflowers at first one, two and then the whole series.

To the sunflowers, in appearance so similar to the sun that the plant is named sun flower, was dedicated an exhibition Sončna roža (Sun flower) in the library Fužine (from 5 April to 5 May 2012), a book with the same name and a few lectures for lovers and farmers. The last lecture with title Sončnica, pomembna svetovna oljnica, medovita in okrasna rastlina was on 25 September 2013 in the Botanic Garden and is available on the website of the Biotechnical Faculty: http://www.bf.uni-lj.si/agronomija/organiziranost/katedre-in-druge-org-enote/za-fitomedicino-kmetijsko-tehniko-poljedelstvo-pasnistvo-in-travnistvo/poljedelstvo/predavanja/.
On the website of BF are also booklets Sončna roža and Pozabljene poljščine, with which you can be more thoroughly introduced with sunflower. You will learn that today's sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) as a useful plant (oleaginous plant), nectar-bearing, decorative and fodder plant is quite different by appearance and biochemical composition of seeds from the wild sunflowers growing in its American homeland.
Although the Slovenian agronomists already in the middle of the 20th century were warning us about the strategic importance of oleaginous plants to the national economy by saying, "the more cultivated is country with them, the more independent is its economy", in the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century are intended to sunflowers only 300 hectares of Slovenian fields. Produced seeds is for a bird food or are processed partly at home and abroad, the majority of demands for sunflower cooking oil and margarine it is almost completely covered with the import for decades. Far too little is known rich composition of the sunflower kernels and oils, especially cold pressed. In common with many other crops that we want to expand in Slovenia, it is also necessary to choose the correct foreign sunflower varieties and hybrids, to improve, especially to modernize the production techniques, and to connect the production with processing and sale of food and non-food products.
If the look to the exhibited sunflowers encourage you to sowing them in the garden or on a field, you will be rejoiced with them throughout of the plant growth and development, and then annually again and again.
the author Darja Kocjan Ačko

Translated by Janja Rabzelj