Winter garlic variety cluster analysis under conditions of Right-Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

Abstract

The issue of weather impact on vegetable crops plays an important role in the winter garlic productivity as it isn’t resistant to unfavorable to weather conditions, since it is cultivated in the felds located in the risky agriculture areas. The research aimed to study various winter garlic varieties and their yield formation pecularities, such as growing season, plant height, leaf area, leaf number per plant, bulb diameter and weight, number of cloves in one bulb. These test samples give the opportunity to form clusters that could give the highest garlic productivity under conditions of Right Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. The research has been conducted in the experimental feld of Bila Tserkva National Agrarian University Training and Production Center (Right Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine). The winter garlic test samples were studied in accordance to the research methods of olericulture and melon growing [20]. The plant density is about 357 thousand plants per ha. The variety Prometei of Uman National University of Horticulture breeding was taken as a control sample. The research suggested that the samples of Liubasha yielded 13.2 t/ha and it was the best productive index, but the control samples of Prometei yielded only 10.8 t/ha. The varieties of Promin, Lidiia, Liubasha, Troika, Prometei (the control sample) turned out to be the most adapted to the conditions of Right Bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. Their stability index was 1.1. The biggest amount of marketable bulbs in the total yield belongs to the following winter garlic varieties: Dobrodii (98 %), Liubasha (98 %), Troika (98), Prometei (the control sample) (98 %), Saksky (97 %), Promin (97 %), Znakhar (97 %). The multidimensional analysis of winter garlic samples on 9 traits under Ukraine Right Bank Forest-Steppe conditions made it possible to classify them at the lowest level and to identify four clusters. The most common four representatives present all the diversity of studied varieties in 2018–2019. The varieties of Lidiia, Saksky, Promin, Prometei (the control sample) belong to this group. Key words: varieties, cluster analysis, Euclidean distances, winter garlic, bulb weight, yield productivity.