干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Turkey has rich biodiversity due to its topography comprising of plains, plateaus and mountainous regions that has contributed to enrichment of its flora including bulbous plants. Many among these have potential for use in pharmaceutical and ornamental plant. However, owing to lack of proper research many among these have to be evaluated for commercial propagation yet. Leaves, bulbs and flowers among many of them are evaluated locally as salads, vegetables, to obtain products of pharmaceutical importance and flowers for use in cut flower and ornamental plant industries. The study aimed to find the suitable economically important plant geophytes that grow in the wild and could be successfully introduced into the Southeastern Anatolian climatic zones. The meet the objective, a field survey of bulbous geophytes of Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia was carried out during April-July periods of 2011 and 2012. The survey results indicated distribution of bulb geophytes at altitudes of 640-2651 m. The geophytes belonging to the genus Allium, Biarum, Bellevalia, Crocus, Eranthis, Fritillaria, Gladiolus, Hyacinthus, Iris, Ixillirion, Muscari, Narcissus, Ornithogalum, Sternbergia, Scilla, Tulipa, Ophyrs and Orchis were collected. After initial screening, it was decided to culture 40 species; the bulbs of these species were planted in the collection gardens of the Department of Field Crops, Dicle University, Diyarbakir for determination of many parameters including, flowering date, duration of flowering time and other agronomical characteristics important for bulbous species. The experimental results suggested that most of these geophytes among these have high domestication potential and could be evaluated for commercial production.