On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 13:50:40 +0100, Kay wrote:

In article , Rodger Whitlock
writes
On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 08:08:09 +0100, Seb Flyte wrote:

...I have 16 good heads and 200+ individual cloves. Many of
these are of a good size and can be used. The smallest I will replant
although I see this is not recommended.

You should always put aside the best as your seed stock for the
next season. If you plant the runts, you will be selecting for
runtiness. Remember that even though propagated vegetatively,
there is some variation in the progeny.

Explain! ;-)
I can see that some will have grown bigger than others, and that the big
ones have a better food store for starting off the new plant, and that
therefore planting bigger cloves will give you better plants next year.

But there isn't any genetic variability, surely? So you're not selecting
in that sense if you propagate vegetatively? In other words, even if
chose a runt you could reverse the process with a few seasons good
feeding, or vice versa. Or has Lamarckism come back into favour since I
was last on the fringes of evolutionary study?

There is some genetic variability, if I can trust my reading.
Some authors claim quite a lot, but I have my doubts about that.
(I've seen serious claims that the genetic variability among the
twigs of one apple tree is comparable to that among a similar
number of seedlings of the same apple.)

And genetics is a pretty complex subject. The ordinary Mendelian
genetics we all know and love is really only a first
approximation or broad-brush picture; there are lots of details
that transcend that model, including mechanisms for selective
activation and deacivation of genes. Since garlic is vegetatively
propagated, it's easy to imagine that these mechanisms may
influence the behavior of progeny. [Don't as me for details: I am
treading water here.]

Lamarckism would be more like "if I grow my garlic in tight
girdles to make it small, it will become small." Or is that
Lysenkoism? Maybe Lamarckism is "the garlic has a desire to grow
small, hence will."

Anyway, it's always a good idea to select the best for
replanting, no matter what style of propagation you're using.

Someone else mentioned viruses, but in crops like garlic that
have been vegetatively propagated for very long times, I'd expect
that they're already loaded to the gunnels with viruses.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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