How to grow garlic for high yield and premium quality? Production techniques and secrets shared

China is the largest garlic producer. Although garlic prices fluctuate, people's enthusiasm for growing garlic remains undiminished. At the end of this month, the Yangtze River basin and areas to its south will begin a new round of garlic sowing, so how do you grow garlic for high yield and premium quality? Below, we share with you the production techniques for premium garlic.

1. Land preparation

The ploughing depth is generally around 20cm. The soil should be finely tilled, harrowed level and harrowed firm, with no obvious clods, achieving “level, loose, fine, clean”. Determine the length of the beds according to the water source; you can make beds 80-100m long and 4.2-4.4m wide, or beds 40-50m long and 4.2-4.4m wide.

2. Seed selection

Peel and split the cloves by hand, remove the garlic's basal plate and stem plate, and grade them as large, medium, small and central cloves; handle small cloves according to the specific situation. Seed selection requires pure white with no red streaks, no wounds, no sugarification and no glossy skin. As a rule, each clove should weigh about 5g. Seed size is the key to obtaining high yield.

How do you choose garlic seed?

From mature, sun-dried garlic, select the larger cloves to use as seed garlic.

3. Sowing at the right time

Garlic must be sown at the right time. The planting time is from the end of White Dew to the beginning of Autumn Equinox (late September to early October), at a temperature of around 17°C. Before sowing, sun-dry the cloves for 1-2d.

4. Reasonable close planting

Generally the row spacing is 20cm, the plant spacing is 16-17cm, and there are about 20,000 plants per 667 sq m. Plant at a depth of about 5cm, and after planting cover the garlic with about 1cm of soil.

5. Mulching with plastic film

After the garlic is planted, water it. About 3 days after watering, cover the garlic plot with plastic film to keep the garlic plot warm.

Remember to spray a pre-emergence herbicide before mulching: after sowing garlic and before mulching, you can use chemicals such as chlorotoluron, isoproturon, oxadiazon, acetochlor, napropamide and pendimethalin for chemical weeding.

6. Hooking the garlic

After the garlic sprouts, in order to let the garlic shoots grow out through the plastic film, first use a “rake” or other tool to let the garlic sprouts break through the plastic film. For the few that cannot get out, use a hook to hook them out.

7. Harvesting garlic scapes

After several months of growth, the planted garlic produces garlic scapes around May, and farmers begin to pull the garlic scapes. The garlic scape is actually the flower stalk of the garlic.

After the scapes are harvested, the garlic enters the bulb enlargement period, and it should be watered and fertilized in time to prolong the time of leaf photosynthesis. After bolting, you can spray the leaves with sodium nitrophenolate, seaweed acid, brassin and potassium dihydrogen phosphate at an interval of 5-7 days, to maintain the leaves and prevent premature senescence.

8. Harvesting garlic

Dig the garlic, cut the stalks —— process the garlic —— sun-dry, trim the roots, remove the old skin, and package.

Overall, garlic is drought-tolerant but likes fertilizer and water. With sufficient fertilizer and water, the yield can be greatly increased. In particular, garlic is watered frequently during the enlargement period; watering is a very critical and labor-intensive task in garlic management. Good irrigation measures can not only meet the needs of garlic growth, but also save water, reduce pests and diseases, and save labor.