Garlic Production

Garlic Production

Garlic is a crop that is well suited to a small acreage or as part of a larger direct-marketing operation looking to diversify its mix of crops. It is well-adapted for production in all parts of the United States. Yield and quality will vary with climate, region, altitude, soil and pH, cultural practices, and the variety of garlic. The term "biological elasticity" describes garlic's ability to acclimate to these factors over time. No one practice is best suited for every situation. You will want to talk with local growers who have experience growing garlic and experiment with different cultural practices and varieties to discover the best combination for your operation.

Garlic (Allium sativum) is a member of the lily family. Garlic has been cultivated for thousands of years and is widely used for both its culinary and medicinal attributes. Although it is not certain when garlic was first discovered, it was probably dispersed by nomadic humans several thousand years ago. As early as the eighth century B.C., garlic was growing in Babylon, and Chinese scholars mentioned garlic as early as 3000 B.C.

Garlic consumption has more than tripled in the United States since 1980 and now stands at about 2.5 pounds per capita. Around 24,000 to 26,000 acres of garlic are planted annually in the United States with a total production of around 400 million pounds. U.S. production is concentrated in California, with smaller acreages in Oregon, Nevada, New York, and Washington. About 30 percent of U.S. garlic production is sold in the fresh market; the rest is dehydrated. The average price of garlic has been around $60–70 per cwt., but wholesale fresh-market prices have typically been around three times higher. The United States is the world's largest importer of garlic, primarily from China, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina.

Marketing

Garlic can be sold by the pound, by the braid or rope, and at farmers' markets by the individual bulb or by a bundle of freshly dug bulbs. Retail garlic prices vary considerably. Supermarkets generally sell garlic at around $2.00 per pound, while some organic grocers sell garlic for as high as $4.00 or $5.00 per pound. Direct-market prices can go as high as $1.00 or more per bulb for specialty varieties. At the wholesale level, garlic is normally traded as 5-, 22-, and 30-pound boxes; 3-pound ropes and braids; and cases of 48 2-bulb boxes.

When entering into commercial production it is very important to know the preferences of your customers. Garlic flavors range from very mild (elephant garlic) to very strong (Romanian Red). Find out what your customers prefer before selecting varieties.

Local retailers are another possible market, but you must take the time to contact produce managers and provide good-quality garlic when stores require it. The sale of your garlic through a roadside stand (either your own or another grower's) can provide opportunities to receive higher prices, but this will require some additional expenses for advertising, building and maintaining a facility, and providing service to your customers. For more information on marketing, consult Agricultural Alternatives: Fruit and Vegetable Marketing for Small-scale and Part-time Growers.

Types of Garlic

Garlic may generally be divided into two subspecies: ophioscorodon (hardneck or topset garlic) and sativum (softneck or artichoke garlic). Hardneck garlic produces elongated flower stalks (technically called scapes) and bulbils at the top of the stalk. Softneck garlic does not produce bulbils, except in times of stress.

Hardneck garlic may be purple, purple striped, or white and is represented by varieties such as Roja, German Red, Valencia, Continental, and Creole. Creole garlic, a late variety covered with a deep purple skin, is the type grown in Mexico, South America, and the Imperial Valley of California.

With some hardneck varieties, seed stalks may often be topped with a cluster of small capsules called bulbels (also referred to as bulbils, topsets, or, erroneously, bulblets). Although bulbels are sometimes used to produce small garlic bulbs, the seed stalks should be removed to maximize bulb size. The term "bulblet" is more correctly applied to the small round bulbs embedded in the scales of or attached to the large main bulb of certain cultivars and types.

Softneck garlic is also referred to as Silverskin, artichoke, or Italian garlic. Softneck types are best represented by the varieties California Early and California Late. Silverskin garlic may also be differentiated into many-cloved or few-cloved varieties, and may also be tan, all white, or purple-tinged. Numerous strains exist, having been selected over the years by the various companies that produce them for dehydration or growers producing them for fresh market. Silverskin garlic rarely, if ever, produces seed stalks.

Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum) is not true garlic but a type of leek that produces very large cloves (often only three or four per bulb). Several small bulblets may also develop. Its flavor is milder than garlic and can be slightly bitter. It also produces a large seed stalk that may be cut and sold to florists. The tender, fleshy lower portion of the seed stalk is also prized for stir-fried Asian dishes. Elephant garlic is sold mainly through farmers' markets, specialty produce stores, or specialty produce sections of supermarkets. More recently, sales to specialty processors for medicinal or health food use have increased.

Site Selection and Planting

Garlic can be grown successfully in any well-drained soil. Fusarium bulb rot and other bulb diseases are a major problem for garlic grown on poorly drained soils. Soils that are rich in organic matter with a pH of 6.0–6.5 are best. Heavy clay or stony soils are difficult to work in and may cause misshapen bulbs. Your local climate and soil conditions must be taken into consideration when selecting garlic cultivars. You must practice good crop rotations and should plant garlic following a heavy-cover crop such as buckwheat or rye. Cover crops discourage pests, reduce disease inoculum, build soil organic matter, and limit weed pressure.

Garlic is planted in the fall and should be grown on raised beds covered with black, green IRT (infrared transmitting), or blue plastic mulch with drip irrigation. On smaller operations, garlic is often "set" or planted by placing each clove by hand into raised beds with rows 6–12 inches apart and cloves spaced 4–6 inches apart (depending on the size bulb grown). Larger growers use specialized "cups" on their transplanters to place cloves at similar spacings as allowed by the machinery. Most garlic cultivars are planted 1 to 1.5 inches deep; elephant garlic should be planted 2 to 2.5 inches deep.

Garlic cloves should be set early enough in the fall so that a good root system can develop before the ground freezes, but late enough to prevent shoot emergence above the soil line. Garlic sprouts often emerge a few inches above the soil prior to truly cold weather. Unless temperatures get extremely cold, little damage will result. Using 2 to 4 inches of straw mulch at planting can reduce this damage and will also help preserve moisture, discourage frost heaving, and prevent most weeds.

Production Practices

Garlic requires heavy fertilization; for commercial production, 125 pounds of nitrogen, 150 pounds of phosphorus, and 150 pounds of potassium per acre are required. Soil tests should be conducted and phosphorus, potassium, and lime applied and incorporated before planting. Manure may be used instead of commercial fertilizers, but it should be analyzed to determine the amount of actual nutrients contained in the manure. To reduce fertilizer runoff, nitrogen applications should be split. Apply one 75-pound application at planting, a 25-pound application at 6-inch height, and the remaining 25 pounds around May 1. Granular fertilizer can be applied by banding or broadcasting; liquid fertilizers can be injected through a drip irrigation system. Apply all topdressings to dry plants at midday to reduce the chance of fertilizer burn.

Retail customers pay premium prices for large garlic bulbs. To meet this demand a grower must remove the scape (flower stalk) as soon as it is visible. If the scape is allowed to develop it will compete with the bulb for nutrients, resulting in a reduction in bulb size and quality. Once removed, scapes should be disposed of off-site to limit them as a source of disease inoculum.

Garlic needs a steady supply of moisture to develop market-sized bulbs. The application of one inch of water per week during dry periods through mid-June will ensure good sizing. Avoid irrigating garlic after this period to encourage maturation and to discourage bulb diseases. For more information on crop irrigation, consult Agricultural Alternatives: Irrigation for Fruit and Vegetable Production and Agricultural Alternatives: Drip Irrigation for Vegetable Production.

Pest Management

Garlic is a weak competitor with other plants and does not thrive in weedy fields. Growers must start with a weed-free planting bed and mulch with clean straw after planting.

There are only a limited number of herbicides currently registered for use in garlic. Herbicide recommendations can be found in the most recent issue of the Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations.

Allium leaf miner and onion thrips are the major insect pests of garlic in the eastern United States. The allium leaf miner is a relatively new pest to North America, first discovered in 2015. It causes plant stunting, small bulbs, and distorted leaves. The larvae are the most destructive stage of the allium leaf miner. Onion thrips cause a bronzing or whitening of the garlic foliage. Adults and larvae overwinter in clover, alfalfa, and small grain fields. Specific insect management recommendations for garlic can be found in the Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations. Several diseases affect garlic, including basal rot, Fusarium white rot (Sclerotinia), and occasionally Botrytis. Long crop rotations and the planting of disease-free stock will limit most of these diseases.

Harvest and Storage

Garlic is ready to harvest when 40–60 percent of the leaves have yellowed (garlic generally has six leaves). Garlic maturation is a function of day length. Most varieties are ready by mid-July (with some minor differences between varieties). Early harvests reduce storage quality, while bulbs that are harvested too late will start to split open. Split bulbs have no commercial value and can be used only as planting stock. Be sure to discard any planting stock that has blemishes or obvious disease signs.

Because garlic is ready to eat after harvest, curing is important only if you intend to store it. For this reason, many growers who market garlic directly to retail customers do not cure it after harvest. If long-term storage is desired, freshly harvested garlic can be cured by placing it on racks with good airflow. The racks should be placed in a location out of direct sunlight and the weather for approximately three weeks or until the outer two leaves are completely dry. Many smaller growers spread their bulbs on the wooden floor of a barn to cure. Once cured, trim the tops and roots and clean the remaining soil from the bulb. The cured bulbs should be placed in clean cardboard boxes or burlap bags and stored at 32–35°F and 65–75 percent relative humidity.

Environmental Effects

In the normal course of operations, growers handle pesticides and other chemicals, may have manure to collect and spread, and use equipment to prepare fields and harvest crops. Any of these routine on-farm activities can be a potential source of surface or groundwater pollution.

Because of this possibility, understand the regulations you must follow concerning the proper handling and application of chemicals and the disposal and transport of waste. Depending on the watershed where your farm is located, there may be additional environmental regulations regarding erosion control, pesticide leaching, and nutrient runoff. Contact your soil and water conservation district, extension office, zoning board, state departments of agriculture and environmental protection, and local governing authorities to determine what regulations may pertain to your operation.

Good Agricultural Practices and Good Handling Practices

Good agricultural practices (GAP) and good handling practices (GHP) are voluntary programs that you may wish to consider for your operation. The idea behind these programs is to ensure a safer food system by reducing the chances of foodborne illnesses from contaminated products reaching consumers. Also, several major food distribution chains are beginning to require GAP- and GHP-certified products from their producers. These programs set standards for worker hygiene, use of manure, and water supply quality.

These handling practices require an inspection from a designated third party, and there are fees associated with the inspection. Prior to an inspection, you will need to develop and implement a food safety plan and designate someone in your operation to oversee this plan. You will need to have any water supply used by your workers or for crop irrigation and pesticide application checked at least twice each year.

A checklist of the questions to be asked during the inspection can be found at online. For more information about GAP and GHP, contact your local extension office or your state's department of agriculture.

Risk Management

You should carefully consider how to manage risk on your farm. First, you should insure your facilities and equipment. This may be accomplished by consulting your insurance agent or broker. It is especially important to have adequate levels of property, vehicle, and liability insurance. You will also need workers' compensation insurance if you have any employees. You may also want to consider your needs for life and health insurance and if you need coverage for business interruption or employee dishonesty.

Second, check to see if there are multiperil crop insurance programs available for your crop or livestock enterprises. There are crop insurance programs designed to help farmers manage both yield risk and revenue shortfalls. However, individual crop insurance coverage is not available for all crops. If individual coverage is not available for what you grow, you may be able to use the Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program to insure the revenue of your entire farm operation. Information from your Schedule F tax records (or a "Substitute Schedule F for WFRP Purposes" if you do not file a Schedule F) from the past five consecutive years is used to calculate the WFRP policy's approved revenue guarantee. Operations that have expanded over time may be allowed to increase the approved revenue amount based on an indexing procedure. Depending on the number of commodities grown, you have the choice of coverage of 50 to 85 percent of your approved revenue. Coverage and premium costs depend on the level of diversification in your operation; the maximum level of insured revenue is $8.5 million (based on maximum adjusted gross revenues of $17 million and the 50 percent coverage level). WFRP also provides replant coverage if it is not already covered under an underlying individual crop policy.

Finally, the USDA Farm Service Agency has a program called the Noninsured Assistance Program (NAP) that is designed to provide a minimal level of yield risk protection for producers of commercial agricultural products that do not have multiperil crop insurance coverage. NAP is designed to reduce financial losses when natural disasters cause catastrophic reduction in production. A basic level of coverage (50 percent of expected production at 55 percent of the average market price) is available for a fee of $325 per crop per county (fees are capped at $825 per producer per county, but not to exceed a total of $1,950 for producers growing crops in multiple counties). Higher levels of protection at the 50, 55, 60, and 65 percent levels at 100 percent of the average market price are available for an additional premium. NAP coverage is available through your local USDA Farm Service Agency office. The application fee for this program may be waived for eligible limited-resource farmers.

For more on agricultural business insurance, see Agricultural Alternatives: Agricultural Business Insurance. For more information concerning crop insurance, contact a crop insurance agent and see the publication Crop Insurance for Pennsylvania Vegetable Crops.

Sample Budgets

Linked below are two sample fresh-market garlic production budgets and price sensitivity analyses (year one and year two). Each budget summarizes the receipts, costs, and net returns of a garlic enterprise. These sample budgets should help ensure that all costs and receipts are included in your calculations. Costs and returns are often difficult to estimate in budget preparation because they are numerous and variable. Therefore, you should think of these budgets as an approximation and make appropriate adjustments in the "Your Estimate" column to reflect your specific production and resource situation. While the budgets are calculated for one acre, a small planting of no more than one-tenth of an acre is recommended to allow you to fine-tune your production and marketing skills with this crop. More information on the use of crop budgets can be found in Agricultural Alternatives: Budgeting for Agricultural Decision Making.

You can make changes to the interactive PDF budget files for this publication by inputting your own prices and quantities in the green outlined cells for any item. The cells outlined in red automatically calculate your revised totals based on the changes you made to the cells outlined in green. You will need to click on and add your own estimated price and quantity information to all of the green outlined cells to complete your customized budget. When you are finished, you can print the budget using the green Print Form button at the bottom of the form. You can use the red Clear Form button to clear all the information from your budget when you are finished.

Sample Budget Worksheets

Garlic Product Budget - Year 1 (PDF)

Garlic Production Budget - Year 2 (PDF)

Initial Resource Requirements

• Land: usually one acre or less; depends on market demand

• Labor: 190 hours
  • Land preparation and planting: 20 hours
  • Harvesting and packaging: 120 hours

• Capital: $52,000 to $55,000

• Equipment: Tractor (20 horsepower or larger)
  • Tillage equipment
  • Hand sprayer
  • Packaging supplies

For More Information

Garlic Seed Foundation
C/O Rose Valley Farm
Rose, NY 14542-0149
315-587-9787

Publications

Dunn, J.W., J.W. Berry, L.F. Kime, R.M. Harsh, and J.K. Harper. "Developing a Roadside Farm Market." Agricultural Alternatives series. University Park, PA: Penn State Extension, March 2006.

Dunn, J.W., J.K. Harper, and L.F. Kime. "Fruit and Vegetable Marketing for Small-scale and Part-time Growers." Agricultural Alternatives series. Penn State Extension, May 2009.

Harper, J.K., S. Cornelisse, L.F. Kime, and J. Hyde. "Budgeting for Agricultural Decision Making." Agricultural Alternatives series. EE0092. Penn State Extension, March 2019.

Johns, J. Growing Garlic—A Complete Guide to Growing, Harvesting & Using Garlic (Inspiring Gardening Ideas). Arlington, VA. CreativeSpace (Amazon). March 2017

Knotts Handbook for Vegetable Growers, 4th ed., by Oscar A. Lorentz and Donald N. Maynard.

Lamont, W.J., Jr., J.K. Harper, A.R. Jarrett, M.D. Orzolek, R.M. Crassweller, K. Demchak, and G.L. Greaser. "Irrigation for Fruit and Vegetable Production." Agricultural Alternatives series. Penn State Extension, November 2001.

Lamont, W.J., Jr., M.D. Orzolek, J.K. Harper, L.F. Kime, and A.R. Jarrett. "Drip Irrigation for Vegetable Production." Agricultural Alternatives series. Penn State Extension, February 2012.

Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations. Available through Penn State extension county offices. Ask for the most recent edition.

Authors

Prepared by Thomas G. Ford, former commercial horticulture educator; Leah Fronk, commercial horticulture educator; Lynn F. Kime, senior extension associate in agricultural economics; Jayson K. Harper, professor of agricultural economics; Steven M. Bogash, former commercial horticulture educator; and Michael D. Orzolek, professor emeritus of horticulture.

This publication was developed by the Small-scale and Part-time Farming Project at Penn State with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Extension Service.