Detailed Explanation of Key Technical Points for High-Yield Garlic Cultivation and Management

Garlic is also called garlic bulb, garlic head, hu garlic, hu, single-clove garlic, single-clove garlic, and is the collective name for plants of the garlic group. A half-year herbaceous plant of the lily family, Allium genus, with its bulb used as medicine. Harvested in spring and summer, tied in bundles, hung in a ventilated place, and dried in the shade for later use. As the farming proverb says, “plant garlic before the ninth month, or after the ninth month you will grow only single cloves”; when the leaves wither in June, dig it up, remove the mud and sand, and dry it in a ventilated place or roast it until the outer skin is dry. Garlic is flattened spherical or short conical, with a grayish-white or pale brown membranous scale skin on the outside; after peeling off the scale leaves, inside there are 6 to 10 garlic cloves arranged in a ring around the flower stalk, and the base of the stem is disc-shaped with many fibrous roots. Each garlic clove is wrapped in a thin membrane; peel off the membrane and you see the white, thick, juicy scale. It has a strong garlic pungency and a spicy taste. It has a pungent odor, can be eaten or used for seasoning, and can also be used as medicine. The underground bulb splits into cloves and is divided by skin color into purple-skin types and white-skin types. Garlic was introduced into China from the Western Regions during the Qin and Han dynasties and, through artificial cultivation and breeding, has anti-cancer effects and is deeply loved by the public as a food.

Garlic is warm in nature and pungent and neutral in taste; it enters the spleen, stomach, and lung meridians. People with yin deficiency and excessive fire and patients with chronic gastritis or ulcers should eat it with caution. External use can cause skin redness, burning, and blistering, so it should not be applied for too long, and those with skin allergies should use it with caution. Garlic has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, can protect the liver, regulate blood sugar, protect the cardiovascular system, and resist hyperlipidemia and arteriosclerosis, and resist platelet aggregation. Nutrition experts have found that garlic extract has anti-tumor effects and recommend eating 3—5 grams of raw garlic daily. Although garlic has the functions of killing insects, detoxifying, dispelling cold, and strengthening the stomach, its nature belongs to damp-heat products, and it is also irritating, able to stimulate the liver, lungs, stomach, and eyes. If you have liver heat or hepatitis, heavy spleen-stomach fire, eye pain, or inflammation, you should avoid it. Eating too much garlic harms the spleen, damages the lungs, harms the liver, harms the ears, produces phlegm, and causes coughing.

If garlic is to be high-yielding, scientific cultivation methods are key, so now we will share with everyone a high-yield garlic cultivation technique. 

Variety selection

Choose varieties with good quality, early maturity and high yield, resistance to pests and diseases and strong stress resistance, good commodity character, suitable for local cultivation, and adapted to market demand.

Pre-sowing preparation

Seed treatment ① Optimum temperature treatment: strictly according to technical requirements, treat for 30—40 days in a 0—5℃ cold storage to break dormancy and mature earlier. ② Chemical seed soaking: soak seeds with 500 times dilution of 50% carbendazim wettable powder for 12—16 hours to kill pathogens on the seed surface.

Land preparation and fertilization After the previous crop is harvested, immediately plow the soil 20—25 cm, and together with land preparation apply 3000 kg of high-quality decomposed farmyard manure per mu and 50 kg of compound fertilizer as base fertilizer, and carry out bed cultivation.

Sowing

Sowing period The sowing period is preferably late August to early-to-mid September. Sowing too early easily leads to secondary growth and severe disease.

Sowing amount and density For harvesting green garlic sprouts, use 250—300 kg of seed per mu, with plant and row spacing of 6×10 cm. For harvesting both garlic bulbs and garlic bolts, use 100—150 kg of seed per mu, with plant and row spacing of 10×30 cm. For mainly harvesting single-clove garlic, select small garlic cloves of about 100 grams per hundred cloves, use 120—150 kg of seed, with plant and row spacing of 10×10 cm.

Sowing method Generally, dibbling is used. After preparing the land into beds, manually dibble according to plant and row spacing using a bean dibble.

Field management

1. Irrigation After garlic is sown, if the soil is moist, no irrigation is needed for emergence. During the entire growth period, the soil should be kept moist. During the bolting stage and garlic bulb expansion stage, irrigation should be increased to avoid drought. After harvesting the bolts, irrigation should be increased to keep the soil moist, and irrigation should stop 1 week before harvesting the garlic bulbs.

2. Topdressing Sprout-promoting fertilizer: that is, at the 4—5 leaf stage, use 10—15 kg of urea per mu; bolt-promoting fertilizer: at the 7—8 leaf stage, apply 15—2 kg of urea per mu, 5—10 kg of potassium sulfate, and spray the leaves 1—2 times with 0.1% potassium dihydrogen phosphate; after bolting, during the garlic bulb expansion stage, apply 20—30 kg of compound fertilizer per mu, and irrigate promptly after each topdressing.

3. Control of diseases, pests, and weeds The main diseases of garlic are purple blotch, leaf blight, and rust. They can be controlled by spraying with 1:1:200 Bordeaux mixture or 600 times dilution of 75% chlorothalonil or 500—800 times dilution of 50% carbendazim, for 2—3 treatments. Pests include thrips, Allium root borer, and seed flies, which can be controlled with pyrethroid pesticides. For chemical weeding, use 24% oxyfluorfen EC or 48% lactofen EC or 50% thiobencarb EC, sprayed after garlic sowing or before the seedlings have 1 leaf, all with good results.

Techniques to avoid garlic bulb splitting

In the late stage of bulb expansion, do a good job of drainage. Drain promptly after rainfall, do not irrigate heavily unless there is drought, and avoid excessive soil moisture.

Harvest in time. 18 to 20 days after harvesting garlic bolts is the suitable period for harvesting garlic bulbs. Harvesting early not only gives garlic bulbs with thin, white skin, but also makes them less likely to split. Harvesting late, if encountered with rainy weather, makes them prone to splitting. The standard for timely harvest is when most of the plant leaves are dry, the upper leaves change from faded to dry and drooping at the tips, the plant is in a soft state, and when the plant is pressed down to one side from the base it is not crisp and shows toughness; this is the sign of maturity, and it should be harvested promptly.

Dry promptly after harvest. Cover the garlic bulbs with garlic leaves, focusing on drying the garlic stalks and garlic leaves, to reduce internal moisture content and cause the leaf sheath base and protective scale skin to gradually lose water and dry. During storage, protect from rain and moisture. In the early storage period, cutting off the fibrous roots of the garlic bulbs can delay splitting.