[Market-farming] scapes

Road's End Farm organic87 at frontiernet.net
Sun Jul 12 09:55:58 EDT 2009


On Jul 11, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Michael Meredith wrote:

>
> Whats a scape?
> michael

Just to add to what others have posted:

You only get scapes on hardneck garlic varieties. Softneck varieties 
don't produce a scape/flower stalk: that's the difference between 
hardneck and softneck. (The remains of the scape, whether or not you 
remove it, form a stiff center stem down through the bottom of the 
plant and into the bulb, making the stems too stiff to braid easily; 
though there are workarounds for this if you're really determined to 
braid hardnecks.)

Also, it's my understanding that, even if you leave the scapes on and 
let them bloom, the little bulbils that form are not the result of 
sexual reproduction, but are clones of the plant that they're on: that 
modern garlic doesn't set true seed, though its ancestors must have, or 
else why the flowers? The bulbils will grow, if you plant them; but as 
they're tiny, they'll produce only very small bulbs the first year; if 
you keep selecting for larger size, you can build back up to full-sized 
garlic, but it may take several years.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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