Characterization of Indian garlic accessions through IPGRI morphological descriptors.

Garlic (Allium sativum L) is the most nutritious bulbous spice and vegetable crop having highest sulphur content and possesses anti-cancerous properties. Keeping in view its utmost importance, morphological characterization was carried out at CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, Palampur, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh during 2017-2018 in randomized complete block design, using 25 garlic accessions for different traits viz bulb skin colour, clove skin colour, foliage colour, leaf waxiness, bolting/non-bolting and plant growth habit by following IPGRI morphological descriptors for making them to arrange into different sub-categories. In this review, main focus was primarily aimed at bulb, clove and plant morphological traits because of their economic importance for culinary, medicinal and propagation purposes. The studied traits can act as a base for the formulation of a core group of Indian garlic gene pool which can subsequently be exploited for developing an ideotype in garlic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]