ADAPTIVE PERFORMANCE OF GARLIC VARIETIES UNDER HIGH GANGES RIVER FLOODPLAIN SOIL (CALCAREOUS) OF BANGLADESH

Any variety needs to evaluate at different locations, along with variable soils for asses their yield potentiality after its releasing. Thus, an experiment was conducted at Multi Location Testing (MLT) site, Kushtia Sadar Upazila, under High Ganges River Floodplain (AEZ-11) in Bangladesh, during three consecutive Rabi seasons of 2013-2014 to 2015-2016. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performances of garlic varieties and economic profitability of these varieties at farmer’s field. There were three garlic varieties, namely BARI Rashun-1, BARI Rashun-2 and a local cultivar, which were evaluated at six dispersed locations as replications. Results observed that the highest yield (8.34-9.80 t ha-1) was obtained from BARI Rashun-1, which was followed by BARI Rashun-2 (7.43-9.48 t ha-1) and the local one (7.12-9.15 t ha-1). BARI Rashun-1 produced 3-12% higher yield over BARI Rashun-2 and 7-20% over the local cultivar, respectively in three consecutive years. Correlation analysis showed that there were positive and significant correlation among bulb yields with bulb length and individual bulb weight. Regarding the functional relationship, the traits like crop duration, plant population, plant height, bulb length, bulb width, individual bulb weight had positive contribution on the bulb yield. It was dependent on those traits, and accounted for 12, 36, 0.05, 45, 41 and 55% of the total bulb yield variation, respectively. The highest gross return (Tk. 3, 63,700 ha-1) and gross margin (Tk. 2,19,425 ha-1) were obtained from BARI Rashun-1. As such, this variety performed as the best, in respect of higher bulb yield potential, as well as the highest economic return among the tested varieties, which was followed by BARI Rashun-2. Therefore, the result of this study could be helpful for improving bulb production of garlic under High Ganges River Floodplain soil (calcareous soils) in Bangladesh.