Yes readers it’s that time of the year when we once again plant our garlic cloves and dream of big fat bulbs in December/January to harvest.
That once was a normal pattern but has, in the last few years, gone from a dream to a nightmare as a dreaded rust commonly known as ‘Garlic Rust’ invaded New Zealand with devastating outcomes at harvest.
Small bulbs with tiny cloves not worth the effort of peeling to use.
I remember the days when one could pop a few fat cloves into a rich garden soil and forget them till harvest time which 99 times out of a hundred one would have big bulbs with fat cloves to hang in strings, for all the world to see and obviously be security against roaming Vampires.
Garlic rust, a fungal disease, was first identified in New Zealand in 2015.
That’s 10 years of misery and frustration.
Here what one lot of professional growers have realised (taken from internet).
Rust does NOT transfer to the seed, thankfully you can still plant cloves from plants that were affected with rust.
Rust species, Puccinia allii, lives on LIVE allium (onion, leek, garlic, elephant garlic, chive, bunching onion, and spring onion) plant matter.
If you grow other alliums in the garden particularly leeks as their growing season is the other half of the year from garlic, you may find the spores will remain in your garden and re-inoculate your crop.
Fortunately, once the plant dies, so do the spores of the rust fungus.
My (their) research initially led me to believe that only this specific species effects alliums, but I have seen in our garden rust spread from non-allium plants such as grass to our garlic.
I now keep an eye out in spring for any rust on any plant and if it appears I try to remove the plant on a calm, no wind moment, and bag it to be taken out of the garden.
Rust is a fungal spore that spreads on the WIND especially in moist environments.
The longer the leaves and any surrounding weeds stay wet the more that the rust will spread. Wet springs bring more rust then dry ones.
We have successfully for the last two seasons planted our garlic up wind (from our prevailing wind in spring) from leeks and we plant our main crop garlic up wind from our early garlics.
This technique is very effective at limiting the spread of the spores.
Garlic rust has two types of spores, orange and black. The black spores are the ones that hunker down and wait for the right climatic conditions and then start to produce the orange spores.
These spread all over the leaves and significantly impact the growth of the crop by blocking photosynthesis and stressing the plant overall.
Plant spacing and placement in the garden is very important. Traditionally, we have planted garlic as close to 10-15cm apart in a bio intensive grid pattern.
Those days a long gone, as this means all their leaves are touching, and the rust can then spread like wildfire. We now plant garlic in rows at 25cm spacing, and the cloves in the rows also at 25cm spacing. (That’s not much good in small gardens but spacing is a help)
We use mulch (grass clippings or straw) and weed regularly to allow for as much air movement as possible so plants can dry faster.
We also plant each garlic bed spread out across the whole garden with no two beds next to each other. In the past, we would have a garlic patch, this meant that if rust presented, it would soon spread to the whole plot.
With the spreading out technique, if one bed gets rust, other beds don’t. In the home garden even if you are only planting a small number of cloves I would recommend spreading them out so you don?t have all your plants together. (That’s a good move and plant some even in flower gardens).
Early planting is probably the most effective thing we have done to date.
Planting your early and main crop garlics in March/April gives the plants a head start on growth. By November when the spores seem to get out of hand, the crop is more developed and better able to size up, regardless of rust.
Variety choice is important. We have consistently found our early garlics (Early Pearl and Early Purple) to be less affected by the rust than the main crop varieties.
Elephant Garlic, is actually a leek and neither leeks or elephant garlic are affected by the rust, so choose wisely when planting. A fail safe choice seems to be elephant garlic.
Ok that’s good advise overall and should be a help to garlic enthusiasts.
In the past I have suggested sprays such as Wallys cell strengthening and even the new Wallys Copper Nutrient. They seemed to helped but still not a silver bullet.
One thing that I have suggested that has helped to obtain better sized cloves even after the rust has affected the crop is Liquid Sunshine. (Table spoon molasses dissolved in a litre hot water and when cool sprayed over foliage).
This gets more carbs into the plants which the rust has prevented from sunlight thus a better size bulb is produced, not perfect but better.
Today as I was thinking about writing this article I suddenly remembered tips I have given to those that love to grow Buxus but have problems with the Buxus disease.
There are two parts to this program, firstly spraying your garlic leaves with Perkfection once a month starting a couple of months after you have planted the cloves.
You can add molasses and Magic Botanic Liquid to the spray and only spray the foliage in the morning or about midday so the leaves will be dry later going into evening.
Another thing also never water the plants late in the day as that will leave moisture on the leaves going into the cooler evening when the disease can take hold.
Now the other part is covering the leaves with a film that prevents the rust from settling on the leaves.
I have suggested this to Buxus growers that want to have perfect looking plants.
How you can do this is simple: spraying the foliage with Vaporgard about every four weeks starting when you have a nice showing of leaves and hopefully before rust comes along.
Vaporgard film will do two things; Vaporgard develops a pomerised skin over each leaf which filters out UVA and UVB.
Providing a sunscreen for the chlorophyll, which is normally under attack by UV rays. This results in a darker green color of the foliage within a few days of application.
The chlorophyll build-up makes the leaf a more efficient food factory, producing more carbohydrates, which means a bigger bulb.
The film prevents moisture and rust from settling on the bare leaf and thus should stop the rust from developing.
A repeat spray about two to 4 weekly dependent on speed of new growth would be desirable.
Now if your leaves of the garlic are covered in Vaporgard film then spraying Perkfection or molasses is pointless as they also cant get to the leaf through the film.
So to over come this you simply add one mil of Raingard to each litre of spray so that the two films merge and allows the Perkfection and molasses to enter the leaves and protect and increase the carbs for bigger bulbs.
Otherwise you could water the two things into the root zone so the plant takes them up thought its roots.
For a great choice of different types garlic gloves to grow go here.
Image credit: Matthew Pilachowski
They still have a good range of garlic types available but they sell out fast..I purchased mine a couple months ago. They also have growing tips and products to aid growing.
Products mentioned are from Wallys Range of products and can be found in some garden shops or by Mail Order on www.0800466464.co.nz
Problems ring me at: Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz
