True Garlic Seed (TGS)

[Richard Watson]

Steph - I'm not sure what to made of it, Ive had other patches of garlic in the garden that have not held there leaves, some from bulbils and some from cloves. Should I just blame Putin 

[Richard Watson]

Update on this patch of garlic. They carried on through winter fine, while at the same time other bulbils/rounds that did shut down during summer have regrown again. Hoping that because these plants carried on through summer/autumn that this might promote and early scape development that way beating the rust. Come this Feb these plants will be two years in nonstop full leaf

 

[onamusuc]

Hi everyone – my name is Katie Cusumano, and I'm a reporter working on a story about true seed garlic and garlic breeding for Ambrook Research, a publication focused on the intersection of agriculture and science. Right now, I'm especially interested in hearing from growers, which is how I came across this forum. If you'd be interested in speaking with me (or just want to hear a little more about this piece/ask any questions), please feel free to message me here or email katherine.e.cusumano@gmail.com. Thanks so much — looking forward to hearing from you!

[AndrewB]

So, side question. I remember following the original thread on this on the Alan Bishop Homegrown Goodness forum with great excitement despite having little interest in garlic myself. The idea of bringing a "broken" species back to fertility and proper seed set is both fascinating and inspiring. I feel like it could be used for other species.

https://alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/5471/true-garlic-seed?page=4

Would you feel this project was successful? I imagine if you have a reporter asking about this project, then perhaps that means yes...?

Do you think the same could be done for French tarragon? It seems to flower very rarely, so does it need red grow lights to "force it to flower" like in Joseph's original TGS idea from Homegrown Goodness? It is tetraploid, while wild tarragon is probably diploid (not Russian tarragon). Do we need colchicine to produce another teraploid tarragon? Is French tarragon self-incompatible when when it does flower?

[Martin Mikulcik]

I had a few garlic seeds i was holding on to and when i saw this thread i decided to grow them out

Sure enough they all germinated

It's off an old no name been around forever hardneck variety from Kentucky

P.s. don't cold stratify or they'll germinate completely in the fridge and be very hard to plant

[Steffen Bauer]

Hi Richard, really interesting thread. The fact that a few plants have produced viable seed at all suggests there's real breeding potential here.