Project description:Diaporthe helianthi is a fungus pathogenic to sunflower. Virulent strains of this fungus cause stem canker with important yield losses and reduction of oil content. Here we present the first draft whole-genome sequence of the highly virulent isolate D. helianthi strain 7/96, thus providing a useful platform for future research on stem canker of sunflower and fungal genomics. The genome sequence of the D. helianthi isolate 7/96 was deposited at DDBJ/ENA/GenBank under the accession number MAVT00000000 (BioProject PRJNA327798).