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I have been growing a few varieties of hardneck garlic for several years. This year one of my varieties (Music) is behaving in a way that I've never seen before. Instead of growing one thick stem, it is growing many small stems that look a bit like grass. See images below.

I dug up a few of them and discovered that each small stem has a tiny clove below it, but the cloves aren't wrapped into a single bulb like a normal garlic. Each clove is separate.

I've done quite a bit of research into problems that garlic can have and couldn't find any mention of this. Has anyone seen this before and do you know what causes it? I would take a sample to a lab for testing but I'm not sure what to ask them to test for. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks!

Photos of the grassy garlic: Grassy Garlic

Grassy Garlic Roots

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    Did you plant individual cloves last fall, or have you left heads in the ground for multiple years?
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Jul 1 at 11:51
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    Yes, I planted individual cloves last fall and I rotate my garlic through different locations so this area has gone through fall rye, oats, peas, and buckwheat since the last time it's seen garlic. Also, the 'grassy' effect happened on about 50% of this particular variety and grew in exactly the locations of my planting pattern so it's got to be from the cloves that I planted. Good idea, but in this case I don't think it can be leftover from previous years.
    – Mark Leusink
    Commented Jul 2 at 17:06
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    Could you add the photos directly in the question? Now you should have enough reputation to do it.
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    Commented Jul 3 at 7:15
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    Thanks for the tip @GiacomoCatenazzi. I have added the photos directly in the question.
    – Mark Leusink
    Commented Jul 5 at 15:36

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After doing a lot more research, I now believe that this may be an extreme case of a phenomenon called 'witches broom'. There isn't much information available about this phenomenon, but here's an article that states that it may be caused by fluctuating weather conditions and/or high nitrogen levels in the soil: https://growinginthegarden.com/witches-broom-garlic-whats-wrong-with-my-garlic/

Here in BC (Canada), we experienced a rather mild winter followed by an extreme cold event in January that incidentally decimated the Okanagan stone fruit harvest this year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/okanagan-fruit-growers-cherries-peaches-apricots-climate-change-extreme-weather-1.7249339

I suspect this same event may have caused an extreme case of witches broom in my Music variety of garlic. During harvest we noticed more mild cases of this in our other varieties as well. Perhaps the mild weather caused the garlic to go into a growth phase earlier than usual, and then the cold snap came along and caused the witches broom.

I hope this helps somebody in the future who experiences a similar issue. If so, drop a comment and we can compare notes.

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  • Fascinating, thank you for reporting back!
    – MackM
    Commented Aug 22 at 18:14

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