Seven field experiments were conducted to study the effect of six cycles of clonal selection on some economical characters of garlic Egyptian cultivar (Balady). In this respect, this work was carried out at the Experimental Station Farm (at Abies), the Faculty of Agriculture, Alex. Univ., during seven garlic growing seasons from 2014/2015 to 2020/2021. The obtained results illustrated that the estimated coefficients of variability and ranges for all studied characters of Egyptian cultivar reflected high and enough variability, which suggested high possibilities of conducting successful and efficient selection to produce an improved cultivar with better performance than its original population. Cloves number per bulb and average clove weight were used as the main selection criteria in this study in all cycles of selection. Some other important traits that were indicative during the selection program were measured, such as plant height, leaves number per plant, leaf width, bulb diameter, bulb weight, cloves weight per bulb, orbits number per bulb and yield per experimental unit and per feddan. After six cycles of clonal selection, selected ten clones which were statistically superior in fewer cloves number per bulb and heavier clove weight than the original "Egyptian" population. Moreover, the selected clones exhibited high efficiency for improving all other studied characters, but with different rates, compared with the original population. The results also added that six successive cycles of clonal selection produced a group of improved clones, the most prominent of which is clones 5 and10, which can be considered as promising clones of Egyptian garlic, as they were characterized by high productivity with fewer cloves number per bulb with an increase in average clove weight inside the bulb.
Keywords: Garlic, Egyptian cultivar, clonal selection, coefficients of variability.