Comparative yield and evaluation of cultural practices for selected fall-planted garlic lines (Allium sativum L.) in Quebec

Abstract

From observation trials of 225 garlic lines that exhibited good winter hardiness and yield, five fall-planted lines (California Early, Fructidor, Musik, Roman and Zdreluk) were selected for further study. In replicated experiments, these lines were found to be winterhardy and consistently yielded bulbs larger than 60 mm in diameter. Distance between rows, size of the planting material, and site had significant effects on marketable yield and average size of harvested cloves. The highest yield was obtained with 45–50 cm between rows. Planting cloves smaller than 20 mm produced smaller bulbs, but yield was not effected by clove provenance (internal vs. external part of the bulb). Key words: Breeding, genotype evaluation, distance between rows, clove size, winter survival, garlic