Genetic variation of indigenous, improved and exotic Allium sativum germplasm

The present experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period from November, 2010 to April, 2011 to study the field performance and genetic variation of different germplasm of garlic. The experiment was carried out with 25 garlic germplasm, which were collected from different parts of Bangladesh, Tunisia, Turkey, Florida, China and Vietnam. Results review that all the treatments vary significantly among themselves regarding plant height, number of leaves, length of leaves, fresh weight of leaves, fresh weight of root, fresh weight of bulb, dry weight of leaves, dry weight of root, dry weight of bulb, diameter of bulb, number of cloves and yield of bulb per hectare. The relationship among the different variables especially with yield was done by Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analyses. Different qualitative characteristics of 25 garlic germplasm namely color of leaf, shape of leaf, color of bulb, shape of bulb, predominant bulb scale and secondary clove skin color were also studied. The correlation analysis revealed that the yield of bulb per hectare is significantly correlated with length of leaves and number of cloves per bulb. From the study of heritability on broad sense, it was very high in height of plant, length of leaves, fresh weight of leaves, yield of bulb, fresh weight of root, dry weight of root and number of cloves per bulb. The genotypic and phenotypic variances were found to be low and moderate among the germplasm. The difference between Genoptypic co-efficient of variance (GCV) and Phenotypic co- efficient of variance (PCV) were very low in relation to height of plant and fresh weight of leaves; moderate in number of leaves per plant and other parameters.