Genetic Variability and Character Association for Bulb Yield and Yield Related Traits in Garlic in Ethiopia
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Abstract
Garlic (Allium sativum) has for centuries been valued by humans for food, culinary and medicinal purposes world
over. The objective of this study was to investigate genetic variability among garlic accessions for yield, yield related
and phenology traits in Ethiopia. A field study was conducted in the DebreZeit Agricultural Research Center during
2012, using 49 garlic accessions from the highlands of North Shewa, East and West Arsi, Arsi, Bale and Sidama
zones, which are among the major garlic producing areas in Ethiopia. Treatments included the 49 accessions
arranged in a 7*7 simple Lattice design, with two replications. Accession were highly significant (p < 0.01) for days
to maturity, leaf number per plant, neck diameter, yield per plant, biological yield per plant, dry weight above ground,
bulb dry weight, dry weight underground, clove number per bulb, and clove weight per bulb. Heritability estimates
ranged from 82.48% for clove number, to 6.46% harvest index. High heritability, combined with high genetic advance
(as per cent of mean) observed for mean clove number, yield per plant, biological yield per plant and clove weight
per plant showed that these characters were controlled by additive gene effects; and phenotypic selection for these
characters would likely be effective in variety selection and development. Bulb yield per plant had positive and highly
significant genotypic and phenotypic correlations, with all characters except plant height and harvest index. Path
analysis at phenotypic level revealed that biological yield and bulb dry weight contributed major positive direct
effects to bulb yield per plant. These traits showed positive and highly significant genotypic correlations with bulb
yield except harvest index.
