Onion Breeding Program in Turkey

The bulb onion (Allium cepa L.) has been cultivated for thousands of years and is broadly dispersed over Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and western Pakistan. Onion is one of the earliest produced and consumed crops in Turkey and is used daily in cooking by all Turkish families year-round. In addition to consumption as food, onion and its relatives are still used in remote villages of Turkey to cure or enhance some health problems such as asthma, bolting, fertility, infections, high blood pressure, high fever, kidney stone, parasite, and hemorrhoid. The edible Alliums are grown worldwide and have been historically maintained as open pollinated populations and are grown as fresh shoots for green salad onions and as bulbs to consume as fresh, pickled, dehydrated, cooked, or to produce onion seed or sets. Turkey produces approximately 3% of the world onion production.