Skip to main content
ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Pullman, Washington » Plant Germplasm Introduction and Testing Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #176065
Title: WITHIN AND BETWEEN FAMILY VARIABILITY AMONG OPEN POLLINATED SEXUALLY FERTILE GARLIC.

Author
item Jenderek, Maria
item TAREKEGN, YAHEH - CSU, BIOLOGY DEPT

Submitted to: HortScience
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/31/2004
Publication Date: 8/15/2005
Citation: Jenderek, M.M., Tarekegn, Y.Z. 2005. Within and between family variability among open pollinated sexually fertile garlic.. Hortscience. 40(50):1234-1236.

Interpretive Summary: For millennia, garlic grown in gardens and production fields was propagated from cloves, which are clones of the bulbs. The only way for crop improvement was through selection. The pool of different traits from which to choose was limited because genetic eonomically beneficial changes in garlic do not occur frequently. Scientists have now found seed producing plants, and it recently has been possible to develop garlic cultivars with characteristics desired by farmers and consumers. To develop the cultivars, knowledge about garlic genetics is needed. These results describe garlic bulbs and plants grown from true seeds. The maternal plants were known, but the plants which donated the pollen were not. Hence, the seeds are described as open-pollinated. The seed derived plants were different from their maternal plants. Some plants had a different number of leaves, a different plant height, produced mature bulbs earlier or much later than the maternal plants, and some bulbs were larger and had a different number of cloves per bulb. The plants with different traits produced from the open-pollinated seeds may be used for future cross pollination or may be selected and propagated to establish new clones of garlic.

Technical Abstract: Until recent years, there have been no documented efforts on seed production in garlic (A. sativum L. and A. longicuspis L. ). The recent discovery of male fertile garlic accessions stimulated research in the genetics of garlic. There is no information available regarding the phenotypic characteristics and genetic structure of garlic populations generated from true seeds. The first generation of open-pollinated families of garlic were characterized for bulb and clove weight, number of cloves per bulb, flower stalk height, number of leaves, plant height, and days required to achieve bulb maturity. Significant variations were observed within and among families for the traits studied.