Garlic is the second most widely used cultivated allium after onion. It has long been recognized all over the world as a valuable spice for foods and a popular remedy for various ailments and physiological disorders.
It is grown through out Pakistan and consumed by most of the people. It is used practically all over the world for flavouring various dishes. In America about 50% of the entire output of fresh garlic is dehydrated and sold to food processors.
In Pakistan, middle east and other countries, it is already being used in several food preparation especially in dishes, curry powders, curried vegetables, meat preparation, tomato ketchup etc.
The important garlic producing countries in the world are china, Turkey, India, Thailand, Korea, Egypt, Pakistan etc.
Garlic is considered as a rich source of carbohydrates, protein, phosphorous. Ascorbic acid content was reported to be very high in green garlic. Nutritive composition of fresh peeled garlic and dehydrated garlic powder as reported by Puthi (1979) is presented in table No. 1. Table 1.
| Particular | Fresh peeled garlic cloves | Dehydrated garlic powder |
| Moisture% | 62.80 | 5.20 |
| Protien% | 6.30 | 17.50 |
| Fat% | 0.10 | 0.60 |
| mineral matter% | 1.00 | 3.20 |
| Fibre% | 0.80 | 1.90 |
| Carbohydrates% | 29.00 | 71.40 |
| Calcium% | 0.03 | 0.10 |
| Phosphours% | 0.31 | 0.42 |
| Potassium% | – | 1.10 |
| Iron% | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Niacin% | – | 0.70 |
| Sodium% | – | 0.01 |
| Vitamin A.I.U. | 0.0 | 175.00 |
| Nicotinic acid(mg/100g) | 0.40 | – |
| Vitamin C (mg/100g) | 13.00 | 12.00 |
| Vitamin B(mg/100g) | – | 0.68 |
| Vitamin B2 (mg/100g) | – | 0.08 |
The uninjured bulb contains a colourless, odourless water soluble amino acid alliin. On crushing the garlic bulb, the enzyme allinase breaks down allin to produce allicin which is the principal ingredient of the odoriferous dialy11 disulfide. Area and production of garlic crop in different provinces of Pakistan are mentioned in Table No.2. The area under garlic crop in Punjab, Sind and N.W.F.P are almost same while area under this crop in Blochistan is many fold less. Average production (tonnes/ha) was more in NWFP and Punjab as compared to Sind and Balochistan (Table No. 2).
Table -2 Area & production of garlic crop in Pakistan
| Province | Area (000 hectare) | Production (000 tonnes) | Average Production (tonnes/ha) | |||
| 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | |
| Punjab | 2.7 | 2.9 | 28.9 | 30.0 | 10.70 | 10.34 |
| Sindh | 2.8 | 2.8 | 17.4 | 17.5 | 6.21 | 6.25 |
| NWFP | 2.8 | 2.9 | 29.6 | 30.9 | 10.57 | 10.66 |
| Baluchistan | 0.5 | 0.6 | 3.9 | 4.3 | 7.80 | 7.17 |
| Pakistan | 8.8 | 9.2 | 79.8 | 82.7 | 9.07 | 8.99 |
Fruit, vegetable and condiments statistic of Pakistan 1998-99 (MINFAL, March, 2000)
Production Technology
Soil
Fertile, well drained and loamy soil is required for high yield. Heavy and hard soil significantly affect the bulb size and yield.
Climate
Garlic is frost resistant crop requires cool period during early growth and dry period near maturity. The increase in day length from 8 to 12 hrs increase the bulb weight, bulb diameter and number of cloves and reduce the number of secondary leaves.
Time of Planting & Method of Sowing
Garlic is planted in single clove but bulbils are also used occasionally. In hilly area, this crop is planted in March-April where in plains, it is planted from August to Oct.
The quantity of planting material required per area depend on clove size and number of cloves per bulb. A distance of 15 to 20 cm (row to row) and 8 to 10 cm (plant to plant) is recommended.
Manuring and Fertilizer Requirement
Garlic responds very well to organic manure, application of 16-20 tonnes/acre at the time of field preparation is recommended. Application of N:P:K @ 75:85:55 kg produce higher yield. At the time of planting, half of nitrogen along with full dose of P and K should be used, the remaining half of nitrogen be applied 30-45 days after planting.
Irrigation and interculture
Garlic crop needs irrigation once in a week during vegetative growth and at 10-15 days interval near maturation. Garlic is a closely planted crop which requires 3-5 manual hoeing for higher yield. However weeding is tedious, expensive and often damage the plants therefore weeds can be controlled by using oxadiazon (0.5 lit/acre) and pendimethalin (1.0 lit/acre), as pre-emergence weedicides.
Harvesting yield
The crop is ready for harvest when the tops turn brownish and show signs of drying up and bend over. The bulbs mature in 4-6 months after plantation depending upon the climate.
Average garlic bulb yield is about 6 to 10 tonnes/hectare in different areas of Pakistan (table No. 2). However, a yield of 21.0 tonnes/hectare was obtained by cultivar chinese at NARC (Table No.3)
Table 3 Data regarding maturity, yield and other characteristics obtained during 1998-99 at NARC.
| Cultivar | Days to maturity | Yield (tonnes/ha) | Avg. wt(g)/bulb | Avg.wt.(g)/clove |
| Chinese (Exotic) | 207 | 21.30 | 81.45 | 5.13 |
| Lehson Ghulabi (local) | 190 | 9.49 | 39.10 | 1.73 |
| GS-I (local) | 185 | 9.03 | 38.92 | 1.07 |
Mehmood et al, 2000 (Sarhad J. Of Agri.).
Import and Export and Price
Data regarding import/export and prices are presented in Table 4 and 5.
Table 4 Import and export of garlic crop.
| Year | Export | Import | ||
| Quantity (Tonnes) | Value (000 Rs.) | Quantity (Tonnes) | Value (000 Rs.) | |
| 1996-97 | 90 | 995 | 17 | 331 |
| 1997-98 | – | – | 1657 | 37456 |
| 1998-99 | 3001 | 64549 | 29785 | 562374 |
Fruit, vegetable and condiments statistics of Pakistan 1998-99 (MINFAL, March, 2000)
Table 5 Monthly whole sale prices (Rs. Per 40 kgs) of garlic in 1998 in main market.
| Months | Lahore | Hyderabad | Peshawar | Quetta |
| January | 1453 | 715 | 937 | 1427 |
| February | 2344 | 1060 | 1115 | 1774 |
| March | 1099 | 1013 | 1150 | 1740 |
| April | 691 | 824 | 990 | 1002 |
| May | 686 | 605 | 750 | 694 |
| June | 863 | 630 | 675 | 1004 |
| July | 1092 | 768 | 911 | 1226 |
| August | 1197 | 710 | 1248 | 1548 |
| September | 1048 | 647 | 1350 | 1447 |
| October | 1035 | 610 | 1293 | 899 |
| November | 1132 | 585 | 1120 | 919 |
| December | 1234 | 595 | 1156 | 1034 |
| Avg. | 1156.17 | 730.17 | 1057.92 | 1226.17 |
Fruit, vegetable and condiments statistic of Pakistan 1998-99 (MINFAL, March, 2000).
Storage
Garlic bulbs can be best stored for 3-4 months in well ventilated room. Storability is also affected by emzyme activity and the cultivars most suitable for storage have generally have low ascorbate and polyosenol oxidase activity. Application of 2500 or 5000 ppm MH as foliar spray before harvest is reported to inhibit sprouting in storage up to 300 days without any appreciable adverse effects on yield. The treatment also reduced the loss in weight of bulbs stored at low temperature (1.0 to 8.0C).
Pests
Best control of garlic rust (Puccinia allii) can be obtained with Mancozeb 80 w.p. @ 1.92 kg/ha. Fusarium rot in stored garlic caused by Fusarium oxysporum and F. solani can also be controlled by fumigation with fermalin (Rath and Motharty, 1980)
Stored garlic is observed to be infested by larvae of Ephestia elutella. Fumigation with Phosphine tablets is an effective treatment.
References
Mehmood, T., S. I. Hussain, Khalid Mahmood Khokhar and M. H. Bhati (2000) Accepted for publication in Sarhad J. of Agriculture. Anonymous (2000) Fruti, Vegetable and Condiments of Pakistan. MINFAL, GOP of Pakistan. Pruthi J.S. (1979) Spices and Condiments. Nat. Book Trust, India. pp 125-32. Rath, G.C., and Mohanty G.N. (1980) Indian Phytopath 39;614-15.