Pre-planting evaluation of allicin content and botanical traits in Iranian garlic (Allium sativum L.) ecotypes

Garlic is one of the medicinal plants, which is efficate in treatment of mild hypertension and lipid profiles. Along this study allicin content and botanical traits are evaluated in pre-planting stage. Bulb mean weight; clove mean weight and clove number per bulb were the evaluated morphological characters. Allicin content evaluation was done by HPLC. The correlation existed between evaluated characters were analyzed. We found that all samples were rich in allicin with values higher than pharmaceutical grade (4.5 mg/g). This study showed that ecological conditions had not detectable relation with allicin content. A cluster analysis of data was performed based on morphological characters and allicin content. In general we did not detect significant relationship between genetic diversity and geographical origins, which suggests that probably the genetic factors have more influence than ecology.