YIELDING AND QUALITY OF GARLIC LEAVES. PART I. YIELD AND ITS STRUCTURE

Jan Dyduch, Agnieszka Najda
Department of Vegetable Crops and Medicinal Plants, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland

ABSTRACT

Studies carried out in 2006-2009 dealt with the evaluation of the size and yield of winter cultivated garlic leaves (local ecotype "R") depending on reproductive material used (cloves and air bulbils) as well as cultivation locality (high unheated foil tunnel, field). Plant's height, leaf number, whole plant weight, weight of the above ground parts, total, and commercial yield were determined. Plants growing in unheated foil tunnel were the highest, while those grown on a filed – the shortest. It was found that the plant's height was the most affected by the type of reproductive material. Plants growing from cloves were taller than those from air bulbils. Number of leaves per a plant, whole plant weight, weight of the above ground parts, total, and commercial yields were characterized by similar dependencies.

Key words: garlic, Allium sativum, growing method, yielding, harvest of leaves.

INTRODUCTION

Garlic – due to its gustatory, dietetic, and medicinal properties – is well-grounded among onion vegetables family. The pro-health features both of raw and processed garlic (including medicines) are particularly appreciated, thus it has been widely examined in a view of agrotechnics, dietetics [1,2,5,7,8,13,19,20,32], and phytotherapy [10,12,14,15,16,21,24,25,30,31].

Garlic cloves (both raw and processed) are most often used, while its leaves are not so readily consumed as possible. However, Asian countries, Balkans in Europe, and Podkarpacie in Poland have longer tradition in that view [7,8,9].

Cultivated garlic leaves can be achieved at early spring and they are a valuable source of biologically active substances such as minerals, antioxidants (carotenoids, L-ascorbic acid, flavonols), as well as sulfur compounds [3,4,10,12,14,17,24,25,28].

Leaves from onion vegetables (onion, shallot, Welsh onion, chives) may be obtained early spring from accelerated cultivations in greenhouse, foil tunnels, and field plantations protected with various covers. Thus, larger yields can be achieved and their supply period on markets can be also prolonged [3,4,7,8,9,11,18,22,23,26,27,29].

The air bulbs at garlic producing generative shoots are a very good reproduction material, while cloves can be used for consumption or pharmaceutical purposes. The air bulbils are easier sown with a help of precision seeder, they are characterized with better phytosanitary features, and grown plants produce large and high-quality yields [4,5,6,8,9,13,19,20].

Therefore, the present research dealt with the evaluating of the yields and quality of cultivated garlic leaves depending on a growing place (foil tunnel, field) and reproduction material type (cloves, air bulbils).

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The winter cultivated garlic (local ecotype "R") grown from clove setting and inflorescence bulbils in a field and high foil tunnel for early harvest of leaves, was the subject of study. The agrotechnical experiment was carried out in 2006–2009 in The Experimental Farm Felin (University of Life Sciences in Lublin). The soil under garlic cultivation was prepared in accordance to common agrotechnical recommendations. Wild celery was a forecrop for garlic during entire experiment. The garlic cloves (from 2.0 to 2.5 g each) and air bulbils (6–10 mm in diameter), after treating with mordant Funaben T, were set in autumn (the end of October) of 2006, 2007, and 2008 into plots of 1.6 m² area each (0.8×2.0 m), at 20×5 cm spacing (40 plants per a row = 100 plants·m^-2) in four replicates. During the harvest, measurements of 10 randomly selected 10 plants from every plot were made (number of leaves per a plant, plant height). The plant height was measured from the ground level up to the top of the longest leaf. The garlic was harvested just before generative shoots producing, i.e. 17 May 2007, 19 May 2008, and 16 May 2009 in foil tunnel, as well as 1 June 2007, 6 June 2008, and 2 June 2009 in field. Plant height, leaf number, plant weight, weight of the above ground parts, as well as total and commercial yields were determined directly after the garlic harvest.

Measurement results were subject to statistical processing using variance analysis and Tukey confidence intervals at significance level of p = 0.05.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Cultivated garlic growing in the foil tunnel was harvested earlier by 14 to 18 days as compared with that grown in the field, regardless of the type of reproduction material.

The plant height and number of leaves per a plant was determined just at the harvest (Table 1). A significant dependence of these parameters and experimental factors was recorded. Significantly higher plants with larger number of leaves per a rosette were achieved in a case of clove setting in foil tunnel, which was observed in all experimental years.

Many authors indicate that higher yields in a field cultivation can be achieved when garlic cloves, instead of air bulbils, are used [3,7,18,19]. That thesis was also confirmed in present research including garlic cultivated for leaf harvest in foil tunnel.

Domestic literature contains few works upon size and structure of cultivated garlic leaf yields. Such study was performed near Lublin [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,17,18] and Szczecin [22,23]. In present experiment, plants grown from cloves under foil tunnel (Table 2) were characterized by larger total and above ground parts weight, while differences depending on experimental results were significant.

At onion vegetables cultivation for early harvest, applying the foil cover considerably enhanced the yields of onion with green chives [26,29], shallots [11,19,27], and garlic [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,18,22,23]. Commercial yields of garlic leaves in cultivation for bunches oscillated from 1.14 to 1.97 kg·m^-2.

In present experiment, plants grown from cloves produced the leaf commercial yields from 1.73 kg·m^-2 (field) to 2.44 kg·m^-2 (tunnel), which was from 73.2% (field) to 85.3% (tunnel) of the total yields, respectively (Table 3).

Plants grown from the air bulbs produced commercial yields at the level from 1.18 kg·m^-2 (field) to 1.46 kg·m^-2 (tunnel), which made up 70.7% (field) to 73.6% (tunnel) of the total yields.

Significantly higher yield was achieved in foil tunnel as well as when cloves as reproduction material were used.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Garlic for leaf harvest can be cultivated both in a field and foil tunnels. Significantly higher and earlier yields were achieved under foil tunnel.

2. Both cloves and air bulbs can be used as a reproduction material. However, garlic plants grown from cloves produced significantly higher commercial yields.

3. Significance of both experimental factors in all years of study was confirmed. Significantly higher commercial yields of plants were achieved, when garlic was grown from cloves under foil tunnel.

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Accepted for print: 25.11.2010

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