NewBalkaya Zealand et al.—Morphological Journal of Crop and characterisation Horticultural ofScience, white head2005, cabbage Vol. 33: 333–341 333 0014–0671/05/3304–0333 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005 Morphological characterisation of white head cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata subvar. alba) genotypes in Turkey AHMET BALKAYA Keywords cabbage; classification; morphological Department of Horticulture variation; Brassica oleracea; Turkey Faculty of Agriculture University of Ondokuz Mayis Samsun, Turkey INTRODUCTION email:
[email protected] Brassica oleracea L. is an important vegetable crop RUHSAR YANMAZ species which includes fully cross-fertile cultivars or Department of Horticulture form groups with widely differing morphological Faculty of Agriculture characteristics (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, University of Ankara collards, Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, and kale). His- Ankara, Turkey torical evidence indicates that modern head cabbage email:
[email protected] cultivars are descended from wild non-heading brassicas originating from the eastern Mediterranean AYDIN APAYDIN and Asia Minor (Dickson & Wallace 1986). It is HAYATI KAR commonly accepted that the origin of cabbage is the Black Sea Agricultural Research Institute north European countries and the Baltic Sea coast Samsun, Turkey (Monteiro & Lunn 1998), and the Mediterranean region (Vural et al. 2000). Zhukovsky considered that the origin of the white head cabbage was the Van Abstract Crops belonging to the Brassica genus region in Anatolia and that the greatest cabbages of are widely grown in Turkey. Cabbages are one of the the world were grown in this region (Bayraktar 1976; most important Brassica vegetable crops in Turkey. Günay 1984). The aim of this study was to determine similarities In Turkey, there are local cultivars of cabbage (B.