Abstract
O.I. Ulianych*, V.V. Yatsenko, G.Ya. Slobodyanyk, L.V. Soroka and I.A. Didenko
The biological peculiarities and morphological features of introduced forms of the Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum L.) in comparison with the cultivar of winter garlic (Allium sativum L.) Sofiivskyi were investigated. It was found that Elephant garlic variety samples are more responsive to changing conditions of cultivation than those of Allium sativum L. The winter resistance of the elephant garlic variety samples was within the limits of 98.0-100%. Elephant garlic plants do not form aerial bulbs, but on the bottom and under the covering scales the bulb is formed from 3-5 to 10 pcs of bulbs that is they reproduce by the baby bulbils propagation. The variety samples No. 2 and No. 3 have 7.1 and 5.1 relatively of large cloves in their structure. The weight of the bulb without removing the inflorescence shoot of the cultivar Sofiivskyi was smaller than the variety samples No. 2 and No. 3 relatively by 28.4-53.3 g. With the removal of the inflorescence shoot the difference increased by 60.5-68.6 g. The yield of Elephant garlic without removing the inflorescence shoot No. 2 was lower than the standard by 1.7 t ha-1 while the variety sample No. 3 exceeded the standard by 1.1 t/ha. With removing the inflorescence shoot the yields of variety samples No. 2 and No. 3 exceeded the cultivar Sofiivskyi by 1.6 and 2.2 t ha-1. As a result of researches it was established that introduced forms of Elephant garlic have high indicators of economic and valuable characteristics but they are limited in the first years of cultivation, during the period of adaptation to new soil and climatic conditions which creates some difficulties of their cultivation and reproduction.