Garlic farmers harvest garlic scapes every year - what happens to garlic growth if they are not harvested?

Summary: Harvesting garlic scapes is very tiring work - what happens if you do not harvest them?

Garlic is a wonderful thing, and every part of it is a treasure. When it comes to garlic scapes, the first thing many people may think of is scrambled eggs with garlic scapes or stir-fried pork with garlic scapes, a very delicious home-style dish. They also store well. Even in the depths of winter and during the New Year and festivals, you can still eat fresh garlic scapes. But if garlic does not produce scapes, what effect does that have on the garlic bulb?

Some garlic varieties do not have scapes, such as the garlic varieties in Kaiping and Lianping in Guangdong, Xindu in Sichuan, and Yulin in Guangxi - these are scape-less garlics, and they also have a short growth period and good quality. The reason is essentially that this type of garlic variety forms a "waist garlic" about 10 cm above the ground, with short, small scapes that do not grow out of the leaf sheath. For this type of scape-less garlic, there is basically no effect on the garlic bulb.

There is another situation: single-clove garlic, or solo garlic for short. As the name suggests, it is just one round garlic bulb with no cloves. Single-clove garlic is a bit spicier than ordinary garlic, and its garlic aroma is relatively rich. After ordinary garlic is planted, many lateral buds grow at the base of the stem, among which the main bud later grows into a garlic scape, and the lateral buds develop into cloves. But if garlic is planted relatively late, and before the lateral buds have had time to grow out, it encounters long periods of sunlight and high temperatures, the lateral buds cannot develop, and the main stem rapidly expands, forming solo garlic, and it will also fail to produce garlic scapes. In this case, there is also an effect on the garlic bulb - after all, a single solo garlic is still not as large as a garlic bulb made up of 12-14 cloves.

A third situation can also cause garlic scapes to fail to emerge: at sowing time, the selected garlic seed cloves are too small, and the soil fertility is relatively poor, with fertilizer and water unable to keep up, resulting in nutrient deficiency. In this case, the garlic scapes also cannot emerge. Of course, with a lack of water and fertilizer, the garlic bulb will not grow well either.

Finally, if normal garlic has also grown garlic scapes, what effects does not harvesting the scapes have on the garlic bulb?

Kexue Xingnong's hometown is a garlic township; basically every household grows garlic, and two years ago, because garlic prices were high, a group of large growers who contracted land to grow garlic also emerged, and they once made huge profits. But in the past two years, affected by the sudden increase in market supply, garlic prices have been sluggish, changing from the former "Suan Ni Hen" to this year's "Suan Ni Wan."

But what gives large garlic growers a headache is that the garlic scapes still have to be pulled out - that is, they have to pay workers to come and pull the garlic scapes; even if the scapes are not wanted, they still have to pay their wages. This is because if the garlic scapes are not pulled out, the underground garlic bulb expands slowly, and the garlic scapes will absorb a large amount of nutrients, so bulb expansion will also be affected. When the garlic market is poor, after the pulled garlic scapes are sold, they can still make up for some economic losses.

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