Fertility of the Garlic Clones Collected in Soviet Central Asia

Abstract

In order to seek fertile garlic, 31 clones were collected at the bazars of Moscow and six towns in Soviet Central Asia, and they were grown at Kagoshima. Meiosis was observed in 25 clones, which showed eight bivalents of 16 chromosomes at metaphase-I of pollen mother cells. Viable pollen grains were produced in 14 clones. Pollen-fertility varied with the clones from 90.3 to 19.6per cent. All of the clones from Alma Ata and from Frunze were fertile, though one of the five clones from Frunze developed no viable pollen but many viable seeds after pollination with other clones. On the other hand, all of the three clones from Ashkhabad and seven of the eight clones from Tashkent were sterile. The fertile clones showed several different characters as regards scape length and leaf-blade length. The fact that many fertile clones were found on the north side of the Tien Shan Mountains will be useful in discussing the primary center of garlic not yet identified, because it is presumed that garlic is evolving from fertile one to sterile one leaving some fertile clones in the primary center still now.