Allium sativum (single-clove form) Seeds | Non-splitting Garlic

Non-Splitting Garlic (Allium sativum (single-clove form)) seed — Non-Splitting Garlic (*Allium sativum (single-clove form)*): Amaryllidaceae, formerly Alliaceae; genus Allium , subgenus Allium, native to Central Asia, the mountains of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and northern Iran, the primary centre of origin for cultivated garlic; single-bulb forms are grown commercially in southern China, particularly Yunnan, and in scattered parts of Europe.

LATIN NAME: Allium sativum (single-clove form)

COMMON NAME: Non-Splitting Garlic

Plant Profile

A garlic bulb is a compressed stem carrying a ring of storage leaves, each of which is a clove with its own skin. In a normal head several of those buds develop side by side. In a monobulb, one bud takes the space and the others stay dormant, so the whole structure becomes a single fat clove.

The leaves are flat and strap-like rather than tubular, arranged in two ranks, and they emerge from a false stem formed by overlapping leaf sheaths. In early summer the stem extends into a scape carrying a dense umbel of small flowers and bulbils at its tip, and the flower parts are usually sterile.

Cultivated garlic has largely given up on reproduction by seed. Flowering is aborted in most cultivars, the umbel fills with bulbils instead of capsules, and the plant relies on vegetative means: cloves below ground and bulbils above it. Those bulbils matter for the non-splitting habit, because a bulbil planted in its own right grows into a single round bulb in its first season.

Garlic multiplies only vegetatively, so it accumulates viruses: onion yellow dwarf virus, leek yellow stripe virus, garlic common latent virus and the allexiviruses build up over the seasons. Meristem-tip culture is the standard remedy, since the growing point carries little virus. Garlic shoot tips were also among the first crop tissues stored successfully in liquid nitrogen by vitrification.

The onion fly lays at the base of the plants and its larvae hollow the underground stem, and the allium leaf miner leaves rows of pale punctures along the leaves; both are managed by rotation, fleece and prompt removal of affected plants. White rot is the disease to fear most, since its sclerotia persist in soil for a decade, with Fusarium basal rot and rust close behind. Lift the bulbs when the lower leaves have browned and the tops topple, cure them in a dry, airy shed until the neck is papery, and store them cool and dry.

Science & Biotechnology

Garlic chemistry is a two-compartment system. The odourless precursor alliin, an S-allyl cysteine sulfoxide, sits in the cell cytoplasm, while the enzyme alliinase is held separately. Cut or crush the clove and the two meet; alliinase converts alliin to allicin, the diallyl thiosulfinate that gives fresh garlic its bite. Allicin is unstable and rearranges into the ajoene series, the diallyl disulfides and trisulfides, and the vinyldithiins.

Uses & Benefits

Because the reaction needs a broken cell, an intact clove has almost no aroma, and the pungency of a dish depends on how finely the garlic was cut and how long it stood before cooking. Chopped garlic left to stand develops more of the sulfur compounds; garlic dropped straight into hot oil develops fewer and tastes sweeter and milder.

A single large clove is convenient in a way that a head of small ones is not. It slices into even coins, it roasts whole without falling apart, and it grates cleanly into a dressing without the skins and the woody core that a divided head leaves behind.

Roast a whole head cut across the top, drizzled with oil and wrapped in foil, until the flesh squeezes out like butter. Black garlic is the same bulb held warm and damp for a month or more until Maillard reactions darken the flesh to a sticky black; pungency falls, sweetness deepens and the stable water-soluble S-allyl cysteine content rises.

Hardneck forms produce a scape, the curled flower stem, and cutting it while tender sends the plant’s energy into the bulb instead of the umbel. The scapes themselves are a vegetable, grilled whole or pickled in vinegar, and green garlic is a young plant pulled before the bulb swells.

Growing from Seed

Single-clove garlic has been selected deliberately in several regions, and it also turns up by accident. Planting a very small clove, or planting late into warm soil, gives a plant with too few reserves to support a whole ring of cloves, so the bulb comes out round.

Garlic is raised by planting cloves, not by sowing. Plant in autumn in cold climates, early enough that the roots establish before the ground stiffens, setting each clove pointed end up about 5 cm deep and 12 to 15 cm apart, in rows 25 to 30 cm apart. Small cloves give the round bulbs the single-clove trade depends on, so do not cull them out.

Garlic wants a free-draining loam with plenty of well-rotted compost worked in the season before, at pH 6 to 7. Never plant where any allium has grown for several seasons, because the soil-borne diseases of the group survive for years. Mulch 8 to 10 cm of straw after planting for frost protection and weed control, water evenly while the leaves grow, and stop as the tops topple.

Our Take

Single-clove garlic is one of the few crops where a smaller planting clove gives a better result, so the awkward little cloves at the bottom of the head finally have a purpose. Rotate the bed, mulch it well, and the same ground will crop for years. Other bulb alliums are worth the same bed: the top-setting onion makes bulbils in the air much as garlic does, the shallot divides into clusters underground, and garlic chives give the same flavour from the leaf.

Vegetable Seeds / Vegetable