Sunflowers for seeds to eat

[Steph S]

I've been shopping around looking for a good eating sunflower that is not too tall.
I haven't grown sunflowers for many years - my few adventures ended sadly with plants prone on the ground.  Much too windy here.  I can imagine structure that would support something up to 5 or even 6 ft tall, but 4 ft or shorter would be even better...
I'm not sure that what I'm looking for exists, but it may be possible to cross 'too tall' with 'seeds too small' and get something that works.
EARLY is another trait that would help.
So here are a few of the varieties I've looked at and thought may be worth a trial.
Sunspot is a short one with about 8 inch flowers and 'seed for birds'. 
Titan, Mongolian Giant and similar are probably out of my league just too tall.
Veseys has one called Early Russian which is 6-8 ft tall.
Snack Seed (Renees) and Super Snack Mix (Burpee) are said to be 7 or 5 ft.
Annapolis has one called Standfast which is said to be a bit earlier than others.

Your comments about seed quality, height, earliness, ease of shelling etc of these or any sunflowers would be appreciated.
I didn't find any other dwarf types that promised to bear seeds, there are too too many pollen-free varieties in what I scrolled through, so further knowledge of edible types would be helpful.

In terms of a breeding process, I suppose it could be done manually to ensure transfer between the desired cross. I would rather not need a ladder for that.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The "Mammoth Sunflower" sold by Snake River Seeds has large seeds, and large heads. It grows only about 4 to 5 feet tall. I have been selecting it for easy threshing, in the field, but the easy threshing bit is still a work in progress.

[Garrett Schantz]

Tarahumara white sunflower was somewhat early for me last year. I am growing a bunch of ornamentals around larger types - some are dwarf I suppose. Suppose you could try for large seeds on smaller heads, larger heads take a good while to get to the stage where I can process them. You could try growing something near the sunflowers as a wind break.

[Steph S]

Threshing and shelling are two things I thought of too, but have never done so nothing to compare, I'm sure it varies though how easily that can be done.  Smaller seeded varieties are sometimes mentioned as being more difficult to shell iirc in what I read so far.

I agree that large seeds on a smaller head would be a best goal, especially if it affects the rate of maturing!  Good point.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

At my place, the  Snake River Seed Cooperative Mammoth Sunflowers are ready to harvest mid-August. When planted about the time the apple trees are flowering.

[Steph S]

Joseph, about when do your apple trees flower?   We have a really late spring here so it's good to have a sign like that.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Here, apples flower about May 5th, which is about 3 weeks before our final spring frosts.

[Steph S]

That would be September for us, but that could still be okay.  We're supposed to get warmer autumns due to climate change and at least some years we are seeing that.

[Steph S]

That's an awesome pic of the Mammoth Joseph.    Huge!!
I did some panic buying  due to the ongoing seed shortages, and stuck with Canadian sources this time due to the mail issues.
Snake River sells the Mammoth from another source as well as yours, I didn't know if they are mixed but the site said ten feet tall.

So I ordered the "Standfast" from Annapolis in NS, which he also says is 'reliably 4-5 ft tall'.  It was bred/selected by Will Bonsall in Maine, so it may have some tolerance already of northeastern conditions, especially if it does alright in NS too.  Although he did say 'limited supply' which could mean it didn't do all that well.   And I had to order the Sunspot dwarf from another place, got that from McKenzie Seeds in the prairies.
Also got one branching variety 'Red Sun' from them, which are smaller flowered and black seeded so a longer way from the food goal.  I will keep them separate somehow (maybe plant at a different garden). 

I may actually try growing one of each in the greenhouse for controlled crossing purposes, and let the bees work the Standfast/Sunspot outdoors.

My farmer friend had some advice, she said I should stress them.  Based on trials by herself and some different friends, trying to pamper and lavish the sunflower with all it desires does not result in an early flower.   Well that's okay by me, I'm sure I can manage to stress them. 
She also described how she ALMOST got ripe seed one year, but they went moldy before it happened.   She does grow sunflowers fairly often, but they're blooming in September.  IDK what varieties.  But you can see that it's an ambitious project...  could be a total fail. 

Elsewhere though, I read that the Sunspot could bloom "twenty days before taller varieties".  That  could make the difference. 
The idea with the branching variety, would be to cross the big edible seed into the many-but- smaller flower format, on the theory that some small early heads might mature even earlier than the dwarf... IDK? 

Seed size for comparison:
'large seeded varieties' - 12-15 seeds per gram
Sunspot:  17-20 seeds per gram
Red Sun:  30 seeds per gram, and they are not bred for the high protein content of seeds for eating, probably a higher oil content, black seeded

[Steph S]

So these are the seeds of the two sunflowers I planted a few days ago.  They both sprouted under the row cover the day before it snowed, but they look okay.  Just the big cotyledons at this stage.  Pin cherry and other shrubs are flowering at the time of planting.  I'll start another batch of Sunspot in a week or two, just in case they mature a lot earlier.

[Steph S]

Just to update my results - this trial was a fail for me in spite of being an unusually hot summer.   Both direct seeded sunflowers survived frost and snow, but were very late to flower.   Slugs destroyed most of the seedlings but that stopped when I opened up the bed for birds to get in.  Hurricanes blew the taller ones down before seeds were set.    I did get a small handful of Standfast seeds by pulling the plants and bringing in to the greenhouse.   Those seeds, a bit smaller than what I planted.  Sunspot the dwarf was actually later than Standfast and did not set any seeds that I could detect.
This is the only year in a decade of growing sunflowers that my farmer friend actually got a seed harvest, from Standfast and iirc Mammoth Russian.  She starts them indoors and transplants out.  This might make a difference, but IDK if the earliness exists in sunflowers, to breed a reliable crop producer for our short season.