Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
madroneb

Very different kind of scape?

Mark
10 years ago

I was given a single head of hardneck garlic from a friend last fall. It was a large beautiful bright pink garlic that he called "Korean Red". It's putting up scapes like nothing i've ever seen before and i'm unsure it's actually the variety he thinks it is.

For starters, Korean Red is an asiatic type, which is supposed to sprout early and finish early (like turbans). This one was by far the latest to sprout (by months) and is only just now scaping long after my others have finished.

The scapes are sheathed, or at least the beak of the scape is. By that I mean enclosed in leaf material, for almost 2 ft from where they emerge from the plant top. There is no pointy tip to the beak.
Down at the base, one of the handful of plants did form a bulbil capsul with bulbils starting to form there. The other plants have only continued to grow the top section with no sign of letting up.

I read that asiatics do have really long scape beaks and so maybe thats whats going on?

Does anyone have experience with Korean Red or any similar experience of this type?

-Mark

{{gwi:364790}}
{{gwi:364791}}

Comments (5)

  • gemini_jim
    10 years ago

    This looks and sounds more like what some artichoke varieties do sometimes. I have this on a few of my Inchelium Reds, but most are not scaping at all.

    I have one Asiatic this year, Asian Tempest, which is scaping with the long beak. It seems to be in the middle of the pack maturity-wise with the Rocamboles and Porcelains, and was also one of the last to sprout, unlike the Turbans which were among the first.

    My Turbans (Blossom) are all harvested except for 2 I left to harvest bulbils. I also harvested all my "generic Cali artichokes" and Native Creole this past weekend. Next up will be Inchelium Red, then the various hardnecks, including the Asiatic. Lastly Silverwhite Silverskin.

    The particular scaping behavior of a crop will depend on growing conditions, and if your weather has been as crazy out there as it's been here on the East Coast, who knows what to expect?

  • kristincarol
    10 years ago

    I have grown Korean Red for three or four years and it has always scaped in the normal way. The scapes are far more delicate than on the other varieties I grow.

    Rust disease seems to deform the scapes, but it doesn't look like your garlic is exhibiting the discolored foliage that rust causes.

    My choice is that you have something wonderful and different to try and identify.

  • Mark
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks both of you for the input.

    I'm fairly sure it's not an artichoke because at planting it seemed like a normal hardneck, 8-10 cloves around a center stalk.

    Weather wise, we've had a fairly normal winter/spring, nothing like the difficult time eastern folks have been dealing with.

    While I do have rust on some of the patch (as usual), these plants haven't gotten any. I do agree I might have some kind of mutation going on so i'll have to keep watching it. Also, I can check out my friends patch and see if any of his is exhibiting this too.

    So, it's late sprouting, late maturing and has strange scapes which I can't break to promote larger head size... this garlic better be absolutely gorgeous or it's not going to make the cut this fall.

    I'll keep updating this and try to take some better pics.

    -Mark

  • Mark
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    So here is the harvest follow up on my Korean Red garlic.

    This pic is taken 30 min from digging. It turned out wonderful as far as I can see. Not huge, but certainly nothing to complain about. Some of the weird scapes never came out, and some of the stems had bulbils develop along them like softnecks do. All the heads do have a hardneck though, and other than some additional cloves on the outer layer, it's pretty much one ring around the neck.

    The strangest thing of all is that 2 weeks ago it looked green as can be, no sign of finishing up. Practically overnight, it started yellowing and turned out to be my second earliest garlic.

    I still have to compare it to the others to see if there is enough difference to keep growing it out.
    {{gwi:364792}}{{gwi:364794}}

  • Garylane
    10 years ago

    Hi Mark, your garlic looks very nice and looks like it would be worth growing again. Im finished with my garlic & frogleg shallot harvest now and a little disapointed in the garlic overall but very pleased with the shallots as they grew huge this year.
    Gary