Fall planted hardneck growing single bulb

[svalli]

I was crawling on my hands and knees yesterday to remove all weeds growing from the planting holes on the black plastic on my garlic beds. The second bed has quite many varieties, which I had only few to plant and some of those are not so hardy. To my surprise I noticed that none of the Primor variety had formed scapes and most of them were falling over. When weeding one of the bulbs came up and it has quite large round on it. I have seen some hardnecks grow this way, if the planted cloves were small, but as far as I remember, these were not so small and none of this variety seems to be growing a scape and cloves this year. The planting stock were cloves, which I grew last summer.

We had no rain for a month until last week, but this year my vegetable plot is in a location which stays moist and I have watered it couple of times. We also got couple of really warm weeks in end of May after a cool spring so the weather has not been typical. All other varieties are still growing as expected, so the drought or warm weather should not had caused this. Primor is a common commercial variety from France, so if it grows like this I will not plant it again, because there are many more varieties, which grow well here.

Sari

[bower]

Sari, Do you think they will divide if you leave them longer?
I remember trying to pull some second year garlic early before they divided, but on the inside the divisions were present already although they appeared to be a single round.

Also last year, quite a few of the Spanish Roja at my friend's farm didn't make scapes, and they were kind of flopping over without it - however they did make fully divided bulbs at the normal harvest time.

Are you close to harvest for your hardnecks?

I see in the picture you have coiled scapes already, so you are probably a few weeks from it?

[svalli]

I think that the ones which have the stems lying on the ground will not grow much more, so I will dig them up next time I go there. There were couple which were still erect, but without scape, so those may stay longer. I heard that Primor can sometimes grow like a softneck variety, so some of these may still divide.

Earlier years I have harvested hardecks on second week of August. This year May was so warm, that harvest could be a week or two earlier.

I discussed online with a commercial garlic grower, who has planted Primor from cloves, which he purchased from France and those have now nine leaves and a scape. Maybe the cloves, which I grew myself, were quite small and If I planted these rounds, they would grow to divided bulbs. After harvest I have to decide what to do. Maybe I will not save any of this variety for planting to make room for the hardier ones.

[zipcode]

Did it sprout before winter came? As you know hardnecks need this cold period to 'clovify' but sometimes when that period happens can also matter, some need it after sprouting, others not. This is how spring planted hardnecks look like (I know because I did it). They are quite quick to mature.

[bower]

It is certainly interesting to see how different varieties respond to different weather extremes... especially since the weather seems to get more extreme every year one way or the other.

On one hand there is the theory of site adaptation, that over years and/or by growing from bulbils, the variety will adapt to conditions... but how well can they adapt to extreme variations from year to year? Garlic has such a long season, they have the best opportunity of any crop to experience unusual weather both winter and spring and summer....

[svalli]

I pulled all of the Primors yesterday. Some Germidours had also stems laying on the ground, so I pulled few of those too. To my surprise some Primors had divided and were decent size compared to the thin stems and few leaves.

All Germidours, which I planted were from the bulbs which last year had real scapes. This year there is a real scape only on two of them and two have the bulbils forming middle of the stem, so now they are growing like a softneck, which they should be. This summer and spring has been warmer than year ago, so the weather must have affected on the growth of these.

For comparison, my marker sticks are 5/8" wide.

Sari

[bower]

Those Germidour wrappers are simply beautiful!
Those are really some large bulbs for such a thin neck on the Primor. I'm glad you got something for your efforts, in spite of their strange reaction to the weather.