Posted on by Patrick

Garlic Breeding and Genetic Differences

If you mention garlic breeding to some plant experts they will turn their nose at you. Breeding garlic? What does that mean? After all, garlic propagates asexually, and does not form true seeds or exchange DNA. How can you talk about garlic breeding in such circumstances?

The answer is there are two basic breeding techniques, the first cross pollinating and the second selectively saving propagation materials (usually seeds) from plants with desired traits. The first kind of breeding, cross pollinating is not possible with garlic, but it is possible to save planting stock from garlic plants with desirable characteristics and this is the exclusive way garlic is breed.

This makes garlic breeding much more of a challenge, and much more of a slow process. It’s much easier when you can shake up the DNA of a plant by cross pollinating, then if you have to replant garlic year after year and wait for the DNA to change slowly on it’s own! It takes real dedication to create a new garlic variety this way. In fact over the years new varieties have probably not so much as been deliberately created, but rather created by geographical isolation and gardeners selectively growing varieties that performed well in their climate.

Consider for example Korean Red and Pyong Vang garlics. Both are Asiatic types, and have presumably been grown for some time in in the two Koreas. Many great garlics have emerged in the last couple of decades from the states of the former Soviet Union, showing both isolation within the Soviet Union and with the outside world.

Even on a much smaller scale, if you buy garlic planting stock from 2 or more different sources and put them side by side, you will probably see they are very different. Partly it will be the respective climates they were grown in, but even if you plant them in your garden and compare the resulting garlic, you will still probably find many differences. This is the main reason why it’s important to get your garlic planting stock from a climate similar to your own! Or, alternatively, from several different sources so you can pick the best variation of a particular variety.

This unusual way garlic has been breed over the years has prompted some people to wonder if the various garlic varieties are really all or mostly the same, when it all comes down to it. A recent study concluded that this may very well be the case. Indeed you could extrapolate from this study, and conclude that in fact there are only ten different garlics, corresponding to the ten garlic types. Maybe there are even fewer differences between these ten types then presently thought.

So, is all garlic really the same? There are very tangible differences between the varieties. There are different tastes, appearances and suitability for climates. At the same time these differences can be pretty minor, for example the number of cloves per bulb or a slight difference in the color of the bulb skin. Just what makes a different variety? There’s no clear answer to this question.

These differences, or lack there of, can present a challenge to garlic growers. Perhaps the most important thing to understand is a lot can be gained by comparing a very large number of different varieties of garlic, but at the same time almost as much can be gained working with a smaller subset.

23 Replies to “Garlic Breeding and Genetic Differences”

  1. Your garlic sounds wonderful!

    Last year I planted one type of garlic – a few cloves of “supermarket garlic”. It was delicious, but small. Probably California adapted garlic that luckily was able to survive the New England winter. I have saved the 2 largest heads to replant this fall.

    For this year, I also have purchased top sets of an heirloom variety “Old Homestead”, and have saved a couple of large heads sold by a local farmer at our Farmer’s Market.

    I’ll plant these three garlics side-by-side this year and I’m curious to see the differences!

  3. Hello.
    I am in my 3rd year of breeding garlic through sexual propagation. To do so you must remove the bulbils with tweezers and continually foliar feed to delay die back. Few varieities are male fertile. Male fertility is indicated by purple anthers. Of the 80 varieties i currently grow, maybe 20 are capable of producing seed and of these few will produce very well. First year progeny has extremely low germination rate. Seed to bulb is 2 years. According to research, subsequent generations have much improved germination and less need for bulbil removal. It is a very long term project. I have trialled many supposed varieties allowing 3-4 years adaptation time for each. There is considerable diversity within some categories and little if any on others. The classification system (the 10 types) is a useful lens through which to view garlic but it is also limiting. There are many varieties which may fit into that system in one location but not in others; furthermore, there are many that do not fit in to that system at all.

  4. Arvam,

    Wow! Thanks for leaving the comment.

    You didn’t leave any contact information with your comment, so I don’t have any way of getting in touch with you. This sounds like something I might be interested in trying too, and I would very much like to learn more and share notes with you.

    Could you send me an email? My address is weblogX@patnsteph.net.

    I agree with you completely about the 10 types of garlic. I think in 10-20 years there will be new ideas, and someone will come up with a better way.

  5. Pingback: Real Seeds from Garlic Plants | Bifurcated Carrots

  6. Comments are old here, but I’ll leave a comment anyways. I have 9 varieties, and through an accident, and some sloppiness, I know longer have the names to go with the varieties. I’m still keeping them as separate as possible. After reading this article; I will simply call them Chelan Striped Hardneck, etc.
    If you breed from bulbits, then you will undo the age old breeding program that humankind as imposed, as larger bulbs have always been a premium, and garlic that seeds; has smaller bulbs.

  7. Hi Chris,

    Sorry for the slow reply. You’re confusing the meaning of the original article I think.

    Anyway, what you are talking about is not garlic breeding, just garlic growing and selecting. Garlic bulbils are genetically identical to the original plant, it’s just it takes a few years of regrowing until they achieve full size. Depending on the type of garlic, this can take 3-10 years of regrowing.

    It is true, if you select on large bulbs and cloves, you will end up with more of these in the long run, but this doesn’t have anything to do with the bulbils.

    To be honest, after nearly 10 years of selecting for large cloves and bulbs, I’m starting to realize what I’m growing is getting very large, and I may start selecting for more medium sized things…

    Anyway, I hope you enjoy growing garlic and thanks for stopping by.

    I’m sorry I can’t help with identifying the bulbs you have. Lots of people ask me that kind of question, but too many garlics look too similar, and I’m not able to tell them apart to that degree.

  8. Pat, did avram ever get a hold of you? I would also be interested in his work.

  9. Also I suggest looking into The Complete Book of Garlic by Ted Jordan Meredith. He has a few notes about cross breading.

  11. Hello to all
    I am a researcher in iran.I and my cooperator have collected 22 accessions from region of Tarom (one of areas of Zanjan province). We want to research taht how many genotypes are being farm in this area and also study resistance to puccinia alli. please gide me how I operate thate conclude best.

  12. Pingback: Garlic Rust in Iran | Bifurcated Carrots

  13. this year I have both some garlic from the supermarket I plant it in april and now in july some of them have a small bulb full of baby garlic gloves at the end of the green shoot i wonder if that is normal because what i know is that garlic does not breed through seeds?!?
    Is there anybody have any explication for this?!?
    thank you!

  14. Hi Daniel,

    Garlic needs a period of cold in order to properly produce bulbs. This must be at least several weeks below 10C. I’m not sure where you’re located or what your climate is like, but probably april is too late. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, normally you plant garlic in October or November, so it can stay in the ground through the winter. Hope this helps.

  15. Hi Patrick ,thank you for your answer ,I know how the garlic make his bulb underground , what I say is that my garlic is having a small bulb in the air like onion dues in the second year of life wen it does the seeds so my question again is it is this normal for garlic because in my knowledge garlic does not do seeds ,I am located in jersey Chanel island north hemisphere N of France English Chanel

  17. thank you Patrick! for a moment I thought that I have a new garlic plant that can breed tough seeds 🙁 is a great filing to grow your own veg !!

  18. I work as a prof. of vegetable crops in Hort.Dept. Fac. of Agric.Kafrelsheikh Univ. of Egypt.I am very interested by garlic breeding.I am very appreciate if any one send me true seeds of garlic or any bulb of fertile garlic.
    Best regards
    Metwally

  22. I would just like to add to the 9 year old comments saying that you can breed garlic sexually by saving the bulbils which form on the “flower” heads is unfortunately incorrect. All modern garlic is sterile and will not reproduce sexually to form seeds in the way it’s cousins the leeks and onions will. When hardneck garlic throws up it’s scape and makes what looks like a flower head that develops bulbils it is unfortunately just another way of creating a clone because it is not a true flower.

    Why our garlics have lost this ability is something we can only speculate on – but it seems likely that a plant which cannot propagate itself through seeds will compensate by channeling it’s energy in to producing more cloves to compensate … and thus people selected garlics with less and less chance of setting seed in order to harvest resulting in our current sterile population.

    Whether the very different phenotypes (hardneck/softneck) result from separate attempts to tame garlic and make it more productive is unclear – but the small differences between cultivars since this event can only come from chance mutations which are very very rare, and would only show themselves in populations isolated under different selective pressure for a long time.

    A recent BBC television programme “Gardener’s World” mentioned that a garlic farm here in the UK had discovered an ancient form of garlic from Turkey which did set real seeds, probably an ancestor of all our modern larger asexual garlics … and that they were starting a breeding program that may result in far more diverse forms of garlic in the next few years. Which I personally found a very exciting prospect.

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