THE EFFECT OF OPEN POLLINATION AND SELECTION ON MATURITY AND YIELD OF ONION ECOTYPES OF SOUTHERN IRAN

Onion is originated in Iran and its neighboring countries. Most of these cultivars are short day types. In this experiment 12 cultivars which are cultivated in south region namely ‘Raamhormozy’, ‘Bh3’, ‘Ghermez-Azarshahr’, ‘Daaman’, ‘Pary 80’, ‘Shahdad’, ‘Bardseer’, ‘Sarkareh’, ‘Primavara’, ‘Texas Yellow Grano’, ‘Texas Early Grano’, and ‘G1’, were sown in Shahid Chamran University in autumn, 2002. Results of this experiment showed highly significant difference among cultivars. After selecting desirable samples during the second stage of experiment, open pollinated seeds were collected from them in 2004. Results in the second experiment indicated no significant differences among cultivars 58 d after emergence. ‘Primavara’ was judged to be the best cultivar by the time of transplanting, but ‘Bh3’ showed some superioities after transplanting. ‘Primavara’ was an early maturing cultivar in both years, while the others produced bulbs early only in the second year compared to the first year. In this stage of breeding program, bulb yield and quality, resistance to bolting, dormancy of bulb were better than the later stages, but to compete bulb quality of foreign cultivars, more researches should be conducted to select the best bulbs and controlled polycross pollinations.