Genetic evaluation of cultivated garlic germplasm (Allium sativum L. and A-ampeloprasum L.)

Garlic cultivated in rural farms of South Italy is often a heterogeneous clone population, which can comprise different cytotypes. A collection of cultivated garlic from the University of Basilicata gene-bank, was evaluated for ploidy level, and 16 different morphological traits. Out of 50 accessions, 7 were hexaploids ( Allium ampeloprasum L.) and 43 diploids ( Allium sativum L.). Significant differences in yield were observed within and between ploidy levels. The heritable traits most correlated with yield were plant height (h(2) = 0.62) within diploid types and neck diameter (h(2) = 0.75) within hexaploids. Discriminant analysis did show that four characters (leaf basal width, total n degrees of leaves, clove diameter and neck height) were able to correctly discriminate all germplasm accessions between the two species.