Garlic Quality as a Function of Seed Clove Health and Size and Spacing Between Plants

Abstract

Garlic has a worldwide economic importance; this vegetable can be consumed fresh or processed by food industries. However, few studies evaluate its postharvest quality. It is necessary to establish cultural practices and methods that focus not only on increase of yield, but on obtaining a product with better postharvest quality. The objective of this work was to evaluate the bulb quality of conventional garlic and virus-free garlic as a function of seed clove size and space between plants. Two experiments were conducted simultaneously in Portalegre, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. A randomized block experimental design with four replications was used in both experiments. The treatments were arranged in split-plots, with the seed clove size (large and small) in the plots, and the plant spacings (7.5, 10.0, 12.5, and 15.0 cm between plants) in the subplots. The use of large seed cloves resulted in higher bulb diameter and titratable acidity (TA). Soluble solids (SS), total soluble sugars, SS to TA ratio, and total solids decreased as the space between plants was increased, regardless of the seed health and seed clove size. Virus-free garlic seed cloves planted with spacing of 12.5 and 15.0 cm resulted in higher bulb diameter, TA, pungency, and industrial index, i.e., they produced better quality bulbs with good prospects for industrialization.

Quality of Virus-Free Garlic Grown Under High Altitude Conditions in the Semiarid Region of the Northeast of Brazil

“…These results are consistent with those found in other studies (BIESDORF et al, 2015;MARODIN;SOUZA, 2018;LIMA et al, 2019), that showed larger bulb diameter for VFGC when compared to infected cultivars.…”

“…Differences in SS between cultivars may be caused by seed genetic characteristics and crop environment (LIMA et al, 2019). Mota et al (2003) found 34% and 37.16% SS in the infected cultivars Cateto-Roxo and Amarante, respectively, which are similar results to those obtained in the present work.…”

“…The garlic chemical composition and the its sensorial characteristics flavor and odor depend more on the genetic factor (cultivar) than on the crop conditions; however, they are also dependent on edaphoclimatic conditions of the environment in which the garlic plants will be grown and developed (LIMA et al, 2019).…”

“…Some studies evaluated the production and quality of garlic of the groups semi-nobre (SOARES, 2013;BESSA et al, 2017;LUCENA et al, 2016) and nobre (LOPES et al, 2016;HENRIQUES et al, 2019;SILVA, 2019) grown in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil; however, only one reported the quality of the garlic from virus-free seeds (cultivar Roxo Pérola do Caçador) in this region, evaluating clove-seed size and spacing between plants (LIMA et al, 2019).…”

“…In this case, the cultivar Branco-Mossoró stands out with higher TA (6.81 mEq H 3 O + 100 g -1 ). Lopes et al (2016) and Lima et al (2019) pointed out that variations in TA are related to environmental factors and cultivar genetic characteristics. Chagas, Resende and Pereira (2003) evaluated infected garlic cultivars (without clonal cleaning) in Lavras, MG, Brazil, and found TA of 0.71% for the cultivar Amarante.…”