Plant husbandry – Process
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-28
2001-10-30
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3643)
Plant husbandry
Process
Reexamination Certificate
active
06308456
ABSTRACT:
The invention relates to a method for improving the forming of flowers of a garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.), that is, for effecting a normal development of flowers with garlic. This improved forming of flowers in accordance with the invention now makes it possible to improve garlic via sexual hybridization and multiply it on a commercial scale via seeds.
Commercially, garlic is an important crop, which, like onion, shallot and leek, belongs to the Allium family. In 1987 approx. 2,662,000 tons of garlic were produced worldwide, which corresponds to a crop area of approx. 421,000 hectares. Commercial garlic production takes place by means of vegetative propagation, whereby “garlic cloves”, which are also fit for consumption, are used as propagation material. So far it has appeared to be impossible to effect practically acceptable generative propagation of garlic, since this crop forms hardly any flowers, and thus seeds, (if at all). The fact is that a garlic plant develops vegetative parts in the inflorescence, which parts have a strong impeding effect on the development of flowers. Said vegetative parts may be considered to be small “garlic cloves”, and they are also referred to as “bulbils” or “topsets”. Accordingly, attempts to produce commercial quantities of garlic seed have so far been unsuccessful.
There are significant drawbacks attached to vegetative propagation of garlic. The garlic cloves which function as propagation material are voluminous, which leads to high transport costs, whilst in addition they do not keep very well. Furthermore, vegetative propagation stands in the way of adequate crop improvement. Moreover, there is always a risk of virus diseases, nematodes and fungi being transferred from a parent plant.
A method for improving the forming of flowers of a garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.) is known per se. With the known method, the aforesaid bulbils are manually removed from the inflorescence, so that in practice only a small part of the flowers have a chance of developing in a reasonable manner. After pollination of the flowers, seed formation takes place to a greater or lesser degree. One drawback of the known method is the fact that it is not only labour-intensive, but that in addition the inflorescences are damaged upon removal of the bulbils, which results in reduced seed formation. A few examples are mentioned in the relevant literature. Etoh et al. (1988) obtained 3000 seeds from various plants of a total of 16 different strains of garlic. On average approx. 10-20 seeds per plant were produced. M. R. Pooler and P. W. Simon (1994) only succeeded in obtaining 63 seeds from 1950 inflorescences of 11 different garlic strains.
The object of the invention is to provide a method for improving the forming of flowers of a garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.), wherein no manual removal of bulbils takes place, but wherein flowers develop normally in the inflorescence all the same, so that the usual pollination by insects can take place, and a satisfactory seed formation can thus be effected.
In order to accomplish that objective, a method of the kind referred to in the introduction is according to the invention characterized in that an agent containing a hormone is added to the plant in vivo before the forming of flowers takes place. The agent is preferably a solution of the hormone in water. The hormone is in particular selected from the group of gibberellins. Preferably the hormone is gibberellic acid type GA3. Surprisingly, an extensive research has made it clear to the Applicant that the formation and the development of the aforesaid bulbils in the inflorescence of garlic results from a deviating hormone management in the plant. This has led to the insight that it must be possible to effect a change in the build-up and the composition of the inflorescence of the garlic plant by adjusting the hormonal balance by in vivo addition of the agent containing the hormone. Surprisingly, the aforesaid research has shown that adjusting the hormonal balance after the forming of flowers has taken place has hardly any effect, if at all, on the forming and the development of the bulbils. In this context the term forming of flowers is understood to mean inflorescence, that is, the forming of at least dozens of garlic flowers. The Applicant has been led by the following basic principles in the aforesaid research:
in order to produce sufficient garlic plant seeds for improvement and for commercial purposes, it is necessary in any case to obtain a normal inflorescence of the plant,
a normal development of flowers in the inflorescence of garlic plants can only be obtained if the formation of bulbils in the inflorescence is prevented entirely or to a large degree.
The invention makes it possible to harvest commercial quantities of seed and thus to propagate garlic plants by a generative method. As already said before, generative propagation according to the invention makes it possible to give a plant various desired properties from another garlic plant by hybridization, whereby also the risk of virus diseases, nematodes and pathogenic fungi being transferred from a parent plant to the seed is prevented, or at least strongly reduced.
The Applicant has established by experiment that there are significant differences in the flower development of garlic strains that have been collected worldwide. Only those genotypes that were in principle capable, whether or not partially, of forming flowers were used as starting material.
The invention also relates to the agent containing the hormone for improving the forming of flowers with a garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.). The agent is preferably a solution of the hormone in water. As already said before, the hormone has been selected in particular from the group of gibberellins, preferably gibberellic acid type GA3, gibberellin type GA4, or gibberellin type GA7. Satisfactory results were also obtained with a mixture of gibberellin types GA4 and GA7.
The invention also relates to a garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.) as such, which is provided with the agent containing the hormone for improving the forming of flowers, at least substantially without bulbils, which has been added thereto in vivo prior to the forming of flowers.
Finally, the invention relates to parts of plants, among which plant cells, bulbils or garlic cloves, and to seeds of the garlic plant (
Allium sativum
L.) as defined above.
Within the framework of the research conducted by the Applicant, garlic was treated with various plant hormones in various concentrations en in various manners.
The following hormones were used:
1. IAA: Indolic Acetic Acid. 1 H indole-3-acetic acid. CAS 87-51-4.
2. IBA: Indolic Butyric Acid. 1 H indole-3-butanoic acid. CAS 133-32-4.
3. GA3: Gibberellic Acid A3/Gibberellin A3; 2,4a,7-trihydroxy-1-methyl-8-methylenegibb-3-ene-1,10-dicarboxylic acid 1.4a-lactone; CAS 77-06-5 or C
19
H
22
O
6
.
For the sake of convenience, lest the description below becomes unnecessarily complicated, the description is based on the use of gibberellic acid type GA3. Good results were achieved with a hormone GA3 concentration ranging from 1 to 100 mg/l, in particular from 1 to 10 mg/l, preferably approx. 1 to 2 mg/l. It is explicitly noted that also other types of gibberellin may be used, such as GA4(C
19
H
24
O
5
; CAS 468-44-0) en GA7(C
19
H
22
O
5
; CAS 510-75-8), or combinations of two or more of such gibberellic acids, in particular selected from the group consisting of types GA3, GA4 and GA7. In that case the total concentrations will be within the above preferred ranges.
The hormones were added in vivo in the following manners:
a: Injection of a solution into the flower stalk, just below the flower bud:
Hormone solutions of 1% (w/v) in water were used. Some plants of the garlic strains were treated at three different points in time, whilst other plants of the same strain were only treated at one point in time. Each time three injections were given. At the time the various treatments took place, the plants were in a stage of development in which the flower buds
Bejo Zaden B.V.
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Gellner Jeffrey L.
Poon Peter M.
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