How Are Solo Garlic Bulbs Formed? An Analysis of the Causes
Garlic is the collective name for plants of the garlic group in the genus Allium of the Amaryllidaceae family. It is flattened-spherical or short-conical in shape, with a grayish-white or light brown membranous skin on the outside. After peeling off the scale leaves, there are 6 to 10 garlic cloves arranged in a ring around the flower stalk. Sometimes, however, after peeling there is only one clove inside, and this is called single-clove garlic or solo garlic. Let's take a look below at how solo garlic is formed!
Cause One: Planting garlic too late is the main reason solo garlic is produced. If it is planted when the spring weather is relatively warm, the garlic seedlings will soon encounter high temperatures and long daylight hours shortly after sprouting. Under such conditions, many young buds will degenerate, leaving only a single clove.
Cause Two: When garlic produces a flower stalk that does not bloom but instead forms many aerial bulbils (that is, formed by the flowers at the top of the garlic scape growing large), and these aerial bulbils are planted in the field, the garlic produced this way is often also single-clove garlic.
Cause Three: Early-maturing varieties, smaller cloves, poor soil, insufficient base fertilizer, drought and lack of water, severe weed infestation, excessive density, too few leaves, and failure to meet the temperature and light conditions required for clove bud differentiation can all lead to the production of solo garlic.
Cause Four: Due to variety degeneration, garlic plants grow weakly, have a small leaf area, accumulate little assimilated nutrients, and the plant is insufficient to differentiate flower buds; these conditions can also produce single-clove garlic.
Solo Garlic Cultivation Techniques
1. Site selection and land preparation: For solo garlic cultivation, sandy soil or sandy loam should be chosen. After the previous crop is harvested, clean the field early, plow deeply and sun-bake the soil, and mature the soil. Apply 2000 kg of decomposed high-quality organic fertilizer, 50 kg of superphosphate, and 10 kg of potassium sulfate per mu, then open beds 1 to 1.2 m wide.
2. Seed clove treatment: Place the selected seed cloves in a low-temperature cold storage at 2 to 5°C for 50 to 60 days. After cultivation, the proportion of solo garlic can reach 50%. Garlic seeds that have undergone low-temperature treatment have already broken dormancy and begun to sprout, and their life activities are gradually strengthening, so they should be graded and sown promptly.
3. Sowing time: Garlic seeds that have undergone low-temperature treatment should be sown between the Autumn Equinox and Cold Dew. The solo garlic rate is 40 to 50%, and the solo garlic bulbs are large and of good quality, with relatively high overall output value. Therefore, the best sowing period for solo garlic cultivation should be during this period.
4. Pre-sowing treatment: Before sowing, first divide the low-temperature-treated garlic seeds into cloves, remove the bottom caps, and so on, then grade them into large, medium, and small for later use. Before sowing, soak them in cool clean water for 6 to 12 hours, drain off the moisture, treat the seeds with 50% carbendazim powder, and then sow.
5. Sowing methods
① Dibbling: At a spacing of 4×5 cm between plants and rows, make holes on the bed surface with a wooden stake, and place one garlic clove in each hole with the root end facing down. After dibbling, cover the bed surface with 1 cm of fine soil, planting about 80,000 to 90,000 seedlings per mu.
② Drilling: Use a hoe to make sowing furrows 4 to 6 cm deep and 15 cm wide, then sow the seeds in the furrows at a spacing of 4×7 cm between plants and rows. Be careful that the garlic cloves are not placed upside down, planting about 60,000 to 70,000 seedlings per mu.
6. Sowing depth: The sowing depth for solo garlic should be kept at 4 to 6 cm. On one hand, seedling emergence consumes a certain amount of energy, which helps weaken plant growth and increase the solo garlic rate. On the other hand, the solo garlic bulbs formed are round and well-shaped, giving good commercial appearance quality.
7. Implement intercropping: After sowing solo garlic, intercrop short-season small leafy vegetables such as spinach, cilantro, and cherry radish. This can appropriately shade light, compete for space, and compete for nutrients to suppress seedling growth, thereby increasing the solo garlic rate.
8. Fertilizer and water management: Solo garlic requires different types of fertilizer sources at different growth stages. Overall, the early growth stage focuses on nitrogen fertilizer, while the later stage tends toward phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. On the basis of applying sufficient base fertilizer, timely topdressing is also required.
① Seedling-promoting fertilizer: When solo garlic has grown 4 to 5 leaves, the nutrients in the seed cloves are nearly exhausted, and the plant turns to absorbing nutrients from the soil. It should promptly be watered with diluted human excrement and urine at 1500 kg per mu, or topdressed with urea at 5 to 10 kg per mu along with watering and irrigation.
② Bulb-expanding fertilizer: When solo garlic has grown 7 to 9 leaves, solo garlic bulbs that do not differentiate flower buds begin to expand, and clove garlic capable of bolting completes flower bud differentiation and elongates. Potassium sulfate can be applied as topdressing at 12 to 20 kg per mu, and the irrigation amount should be increased to promote rapid bulb expansion.
③ Foliar fertilizer: For solo garlic cultivation, foliar spraying should be carried out according to plant growth with appropriate concentrations of monopotassium phosphate, garlic-specific multi-element micro-fertilizer, garlic bulb expansion agent, and so on. These measures all help improve yield and quality.