Format: ORAL

1 Suleyman KIZIL 2 Khalid Mahmood KHAWAR

1 Department of Field Crops, Agriculture FAculty, Dicle University, Diyarbakir, TURKEY 2 Department of Field Crops, Agriculture FAculty, Ankara University, Ankara, TURKEY

Allium tuncelianum (Kollman) N. Ozhatay, B. Mathew Siraneci ] or Tunceli garlic is endemic to Eastern Turkish Provinces of Tunceli, Sivas Erzincan and Munzur mountains. They are edible, and bear attractive deep lilac colored flowers with fertile black deep dormant seeds. Tunceli garlic seeds were collected from field grown plants and aimed to break seed dormancy to optimize conditions for induction of bulblets, along with their growth, development and increased bulb diameter. Therefore, these were cultured on MS medium amended with different strengths of KNO3. They were germinated on MS medium with or without 20 g/l sucrose followed by their culture on 1 , 2, 4 and 6 1900 mg/l mg/l KNO3 to increase bulb diameter. Improved seeds germination was noted on MS medium with and without sucrose but with variation compared to previous reports. The bulb formation rate on each of the germinated seeds was not parallel. The results showed 34% and 28.5% bulb induction noted on germinated seeds after 150 and 158 days on MS medium containing 20 g l-1 sucrose and no sucrose in the same sequence. The results emphatically noted role of cold stratification on agar solidified MS medium supplemented with sucrose to improve seed germination. The best increase in bulb diameter was noted on MS medium containing 1 1900 mg/l KNO3 after 178 days with bulblet diameter and weight of 0.54 cm and 0.048 g, respectively. Consequently, the bulbs induced on sucrose-containing MS medium could be transferred to pots earlier.Increased (1 1900 mg/l KNO3) strengths of KNO3 induced a negative effect on the growth and development of Tunceli garlic bulbs.The strategy of seed germination and bulblet induction reported in this study could be positively used for conservation and protection of this endemic.