Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
1
D
ISTRIBUTION AND
E
CONOMIC
I
MPORTANCE OF THE
M
AJOR
V
EGETABLE
C
ROPS
The edible alliums include some of man's most ancient cultivated crops, includ-
ing onion, garlic, leek and Japanese bunching onion. Depictions more than 5000
years old of onion bulbs and models of garlic bulbs have been found in Egypt. The
most important cultivated crops evolved from wild relatives that grew in the
mountainous regions of central Asia. Many species of wild allium are edible and
some are still collected for food, but only a few species are commercially cultivated
as food crops and it is with these that this topic is mainly concerned. Some of the
major crop species are illustrated in Plate 1.
The botanical classification of alliums, revised according to recent findings
using molecular techniques, was summarized by Friesen
et al.
(2006). The
genus occupies the following taxonomic context (APG, 2003):
Class Monocotyledones
Order Asparagales
Family Alliaceae
Genus
Allium
After the Poales, which include the cereal crops, the Asparagales is the
second most economically important monocot order. It includes agave, aloe,
asparagus, chive, garlic, iris, leek, onion, orchid and vanilla. The Alliaceae are
grouped into the 'higher' Asparagales, closely related to the economically
important Asparagaceae (asparagus) and the Amaryllidaceae (yucca and
other ornamentals) (Kuhl
et al
., 2004).
There are estimated to be about 780 species in the genus
Allium
(Friesen
et
al.
, 2006), with 650 having two or more names (synonyms) (Mathew, 1996;
Fritsch and Friesen, 2002).
