Landrace Gardening: True Garlic Seeds

Reader Contribution by Joseph Lofthouse
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A cloned crop like garlic has limited potential to become localized to a particular garden. The glorious success of landrace gardening happens because genetically diverse crops are subjected to survival-of-the-fittest and farmer directed selection. After a while, the varieties get closely aligned to the local environment, the farmer’s way of doing things, and the culinary habits of the community. 

In the 2011 growing season I was chatting with a few other plant breeders. We decided that we should be growing garlic from pollinated seeds so that we can create new varieties of garlic that can be regionally adapted. It’s a daunting task, because very few varieties of garlic make seeds any more.

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