What are the key technical points for garlic cultivation? A detailed explanation in one article

Garlic is a bulb vegetable of the onion family, with strong cold tolerance, an optimum growth temperature of 12-25°C, and is a long-day crop. It is suitable for planting in fertile, slightly alkaline soil rich in organic matter with convenient irrigation and drainage. To grow garlic, the main steps to get right are as follows:

(1) Variety selection

At present, the main varieties suitable for planting in Qilin District are Sichuan Red Seven Stars (first generation, second generation), Soft-leaf Garlic, First-grade Early, Second-grade Early, local purple-skin garlic, etc.

(2) Sowing time

In the flat basin area, early garlic sprouts and Red Seven Stars (first generation, second generation) are generally planted around the White Dew solar term (early September). The best sowing period for Second-grade Early is around the Autumn Equinox solar term (mid-to-late September). The sowing period for late garlic is best from the Autumn Equinox to Cold Dew (that is, September 23 to October 8). In high-altitude areas, planting can be moved earlier by one solar term.

(3) Seed treatment

Before sowing, first select and grade the garlic cloves, remove cloves infected by pests or diseases, separate them by size, and sow them by grade.

(4) Land preparation and bed making, rational close planting

When preparing the land and making beds, the surface should be fine and the subsoil coarse, and the bed width should be 3-4 m. Sowing should not be too deep, and the soil should be kept somewhat moist to promote earlier emergence. Red Seven Stars requires 100-120 kg of seed per mu, while other varieties have smaller cloves and require only 60-75 kg of seed per mu. The density per mu is 30,000-40,000 plants, with row spacing of 15-18 cm and plant spacing of 8-10 cm. Early-maturing varieties should be planted somewhat denser, and late-maturing varieties somewhat sparser.

(5) Field management

1. Weeding and loosening the soil: After garlic emerges, if the soil is compacted and weeds are overgrown, intertillage should be carried out together with weeding. When the seedlings are 10-13 cm tall and have 2-3 leaves, carry out the first intertillage; when the seedlings are 26-33 cm tall and have 5-6 leaves, carry out the second shallow intertillage. Weeding in garlic fields is fairly labor-intensive. To improve efficiency, chemical weeding should be promoted. Chemical herbicide weeding is as follows: apply the chemical 3 days after planting garlic, spraying Goal and Saturn to prevent weeds. After emergence, intertillage should be done 1-2 times to prevent soil compaction and weed overgrowth. If there are many weeds at the seedling stage, different herbicides can be selected to control them once according to the different types of weeds.

2. Irrigation: After garlic is sown, if the soil is moist, it generally does not need irrigation to emerge; when the soil is dry, irrigate once to ensure uniform emergence. At the seedling stage, irrigation should generally be reduced and intertillage increased, with moisture appropriately controlled to prevent excessive vegetative growth and premature "mother clove depletion." During the bolting and bulb enlargement stages, irrigation should be increased to avoid drought stress and keep the soil moist. Irrigation should mainly be furrow irrigation, with water not covering the bed surface, and withdrawn as soon as the soil is moist, avoiding flood irrigation. Irrigation should stop 5-7 days before harvesting the garlic bulbs, otherwise loose-cloved garlic is likely to occur.

3. Fertilization: Garlic has a long growth period and a high fertilizer requirement, but its root system is shallow and its ability to absorb nutrients is weak, so sufficient base fertilizer should be applied and topdressing should be done in stages to continuously meet the needs of garlic growth and development. Garlic fertilization should be based mainly on organic fertilizer, accounting for 70% of the total fertilizer application. The ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium should preferably be 1:0.8:1, with about 12.5 kg of pure nitrogen per mu. Attention should be paid to supplementing calcium-containing fertilizers and increasing boron fertilizer. In fertilization, the "one-time application" method or the method of heavy base fertilizer with early topdressing can be used. Generally, the base fertilizer uses 30 kg of compound fertilizer (15:15:15) per mu plus 50-80 loads of pig manure. At the mother clove depletion stage (around 5 leaves after emergence), apply a seedling-promoting fertilizer once, using 30 kg of urea or 35 kg of ammonium bicarbonate per mu. At the round-foot stage (after 8 leaves), 20 kg of urea or 30 kg of ammonium bicarbonate can be applied per mu.

4. Disease and pest control: During the garlic growth period, especially after December, cold waves occur more frequently, and low temperatures with little sunlight and high humidity easily lead to the occurrence of garlic diseases and pests. The main diseases are rust, leaf blight, and late blight. Control agents: triadimefon, chlorothalonil, dichlofluanid, and procymidone can be applied at the early stage of disease or during the disease period; the pest onion thrips can be killed with trichlorfon. After the Beginning of Spring, as temperatures rise and sunshine increases, garlic enters a rapid growth stage. At this time, it needs the most fertilizer and water, so attention should be paid to supplementary fertilization according to seedling condition and timely irrigation, while also lowering field humidity to meet the needs of garlic growth.