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Post by philagardener on Jul 23, 2015 5:41:45 GMT -5
That would be a great comparison, oldmobie ! The rationale for removing bulbils includes (1) stressing the plant (stimulating reproduction) and (2) enhancing floral development because the scape's resources are not shared/dominated by the developing bulbils. Results are mixed but removing the bulbils earlier might have benefits in these regards. You could test no removal/early removal/later removal (thirds of your patch). Early might be as soon as you can get in there and the buds are tight; late might be after flowers have opened.  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 23, 2015 9:09:28 GMT -5
oldmobie and kazedwards: I'm glad that you are working on this and having success. The traits of different cultivars, and even the same cultivar from week to week, are so variable that it's hard to make generalized statements... But I'll attempt something along those lines anyway. I start removing bulbils about the time the sheath around the bulbils splits (plus or minus a few days). I tend to remove the sheath, and then come back in a day or two when the flowers have de-compressed to remove the bulbils. Then come back in about a week and remove the bulbils I missed. Waiting too long (on many varieties) causes the flower head to crack apart, which leads to the flowers dehydrating early. I have plenty of flowers so I typically abandon split flower heads. Bulbils on some varieties are so loose that they pop themselves out of the head. Other varieties have bulbils that are so tightly held that I abandon them to their fate. Slightly older bulbils tend to be easier to remove, the trade off being to remove them before the head splits or they crush the flower stems.
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Post by flowerweaver on Jul 23, 2015 18:35:50 GMT -5
Out of the six purple garlic varieties I grew this year, none put on TGS but both Music and Purple Glazer gave me bulbils, which I will plant. This is the first time I've grown any hardnecks because they aren't recommended for the south, however they performed well. The excessive rain rotted the papery sheaths off almost all the garlic just harvested, but I was able to salvage cloves from everything. Oddly none of the purple varieties exhibited any purple--what's up with that? Here's what they should have looked like coming out (taken in the fall when I planted):  |
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Post by richardw on Jul 24, 2015 14:52:36 GMT -5
Waiting too long (on many varieties) causes the flower head to crack apart, which leads to the flowers dehydrating early. I have plenty of flowers so I typically abandon split flower heads. Thats what happened to all of mine last summer and yet i started removing the bulbils around the time the sheath split open. |
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 24, 2015 23:09:26 GMT -5
I should get plenty of TGS this year. http://instagram.com/p/5i1FizipwK Every plant has 20 plus flowers. http://instagram.com/p/5i0t1XCp_o http://instagram.com/p/5i00hGip_v Most of them have a lot more flowers. The last pic you can see the bulbils. There are 150 to 200 on this head. They are easily removed. I start at the bottom and work my way up and around. My thoughts are that as the bulbils grow the older and bigger ones get loose and are forced away from the head. I start with one of those until I have an area the size of the tip of my finger. I then just roll the pad of my finger gently over the top of the bulbils, but hard enough that they come loose. If they get stuck in the flowers I tap the stem and they usually fall out. Chesnok Red, the variety that I have, has almost a second layer of bulbils that are younger than the ones on top. They have very little color and thin skin to them. These are a little more challenging to get out and hard to see. I usually use my finger nails and pull them by the skin. Trying to get those I ruin the most flowers. It isn't necessary to get them at the same time as the rest. I usually give up after a few heads and come back in a few days. I just started removing bulbils today and only did 3 heads. That is usually my pace. A few heads every few days. So it seems that I inadvertently remove them at different stages. http://instagram.com/p/5i05QNCp_2 http://instagram.com/p/5i08Jcip_9 http://instagram.com/p/5i1AfdCpwC Bees are enjoying the garlic this year. I have seen several different kinds too. |
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 25, 2015 16:27:12 GMT -5
Here is a pic of one of the heads with the bulbils removed. http://instagram.com/p/5kvZWKCp51 And here is one that still has one of the younger bulbils on it. It is right above my finger tip and has just a little color to it. http://instagram.com/p/5kvaj5ip52 I wonder if it is sunlight that causes the bulbils to get coloration? At least it seems like it. |
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 25, 2015 18:42:27 GMT -5
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Post by flowerweaver on Jul 25, 2015 19:09:18 GMT -5
Some of my bulbils had sprouted, too, with all the rain. Now we are hot and dry, like it never rained at all. Looks like your garlic was a success!
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 29, 2015 16:10:24 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 30, 2015 0:06:40 GMT -5
I have 4 garlic weed patches... These are places where I have grown garlic for the True Garlic Seed Project in the past, but I can't use them again cause that would make it hard to distinguish between weeds and what I'm growing on purpose... Today when I was weeding near one of them, I noticed beautiful garlic flowers. Well formed. Purple as can be. About 5 plants. The tiny bulbils had mostly fallen out by them selves. They weren't in any sort of row, just randomly arranged, but in the general vicinity where I planted the original GRIN bulbils. I'm hyped. They were gorgeously developed flowers. The bulbils falling out spontaneously resembles the phenotype of Z058.
I'm intending to take surveyors tape and a camera with me next time I go to the garden, so that I can document them and mark them.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 30, 2015 0:14:31 GMT -5
The excessive rain rotted the papery sheaths off almost all the garlic just harvested, but I was able to salvage cloves from everything. Oddly none of the purple varieties exhibited any purple--what's up with that? In most things I grow, the purple color develops only when there is adequate sunlight, so my best guess is that the excessive rain prevented adequate sunlight from triggering the formation of purple color. |
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Post by philagardener on Jul 30, 2015 4:57:34 GMT -5
I have 4 garlic weed patches... These are places where I have grown garlic for the True Garlic Seed Project in the past, but I can't use them again cause that would make it hard to distinguish between weeds and what I'm growing on purpose... Today when I was weeding near one of them, I noticed beautiful garlic flowers. Well formed. Purple as can be. About 5 plants. The tiny bulbils had mostly fallen out by them selves. They weren't in any sort of row, just randomly arranged, but in the general vicinity where I planted the original GRIN bulbils. I'm hyped. They were gorgeously developed flowers. The bulbils falling out spontaneously resembles the phenotype of Z058. I'm intending to take surveyors tape and a camera with me next time I go to the garden, so that I can document them and mark them. A weed by any other name . . . could be a winner! |
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Post by meganp on Jul 30, 2015 6:12:32 GMT -5
I have 4 garlic weed patches... These are places where I have grown garlic for the True Garlic Seed Project in the past, but I can't use them again cause that would make it hard to distinguish between weeds and what I'm growing on purpose... Today when I was weeding near one of them, I noticed beautiful garlic flowers. Well formed. Purple as can be. About 5 plants. The tiny bulbils had mostly fallen out by them selves. They weren't in any sort of row, just randomly arranged, but in the general vicinity where I planted the original GRIN bulbils. I'm hyped. They were gorgeously developed flowers. The bulbils falling out spontaneously resembles the phenotype of Z058. I'm intending to take surveyors tape and a camera with me next time I go to the garden, so that I can document them and mark them. maybe you should check the spot where you spilt your tgs and check if any of them germinated?  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 30, 2015 14:23:29 GMT -5
meganp: Excellent suggestion. I haven't mown that area since I spilled the seeds. Volunteer rye grew on it, and I made a fire in about that area. I didn't find any garlic looking at the area a minute ago, but seedlings would have already went dormant for the summer. I suppose that if any grew that they will sprout this fall and grow while the grass isn't...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 2, 2015 1:58:14 GMT -5
Garlic flower with self-shedding bulbils:  |
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