New technology seen to boost garlic production

The Philippines will revive its struggling garlic industry with “mass micropropagation” and “tissue culture” of virus-free garlic planting materials that can boost garlic production.

Breeders have partnered with the Ilocos Norte local government unit (LGU) led by Gov. Imee Marcos for the technology development on garlic planting materials production.

The Institute of Plant Breeding and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) have put up the facility to distribute virus-free planting materials in pilot provinces, said IPB co-founder Emil Javier.

Javier said the state universities can subsequently farm out the commercial operation of tissue culture production to private seed companies or cooperatives.

Tissue culture is a way of producing numerous disease-free planting materials in the laboratory for mass production in the fields. Different plant parts are extracted from parent plants and grown under aseptic and controlled environment.

At present, mass micropropagation is done by Department of Agriculture’s (DA) attached agencies.

“The actual commercial propagation of certified virus-free seeds will not be performed by the universities but by designated properly trained farmer seed cooperators/farmer scientists supervised by BPI and Agricultural Training Institute (ATI),” said Javier.

The success of this technology will have a significant impact in improving income of small farmers. At a market price of P80 per kilo minus cost of P40 per kilo, margin is at P40 per kilo or a net income of P160,000 per hectare at a potential yield of four metric tons (MT) per hectare.

This is three times most farmers’ income of only P50,000 per hectare from rice farming.

The Philippines remains dependent on imported garlic. Smuggling concerns (technical and real) have been a menace for government regulators.

Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, imports reached 74,000 MT as of 2015, representing more than 90 percent of the total supply. Imports reached $25.43 million.

With IPB’s technology on virus-free planting materials and its coordination with LGUs and DA, the country has already achieved a certain level of success in raising production.

Ilocos provinces reported a marked increase in local production as of the first quarter as the tissue culture technique “originally developed by Lilian Patena and National Scientist Ramon Barba assured farmers in Ilocos Norte access to clean, healthy seeds.”

Ilocos region produced 5,100 MT of garlic, contributing 72.5 percent to the national total.

This became possible with the “bigger bulbs harvested in Ilocos Norte as a result of the availability of more quality seeds from the local government units coupled with favorable wind during bulb formation,” the PSA reported.

MIMAROPA (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan), mainly Occidental Mindoro, had the next highest garlic production with 21.3 percent of the total followed by Cagayan Valley, 4.3 percent.

These pushed total garlic production up to 7,030 MT, higher by 3.1 percent compared to the 2016 output.

To achieve optimum yield in garlic production, planting should only be done during the “better” season of the year and in suitable locations. One ideal site is in Occidental Mindoro which registered a yield of 6.32 MT per hectare, said Javier, chairman of the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines.

“With virus-free plant- ing materials and intensive cultural management, average yields of five tons per hectare are attainable. These should bring down costs competitive with the P 20 per kilogram landed cost of imported garlic.”

All resources in garlic planting should be poured into ideal provinces. These are Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Batanes, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro where “farmers have experience and who need no further persuasion to grow garlic,” Javier said.

Patena said a farmer cooperator of IPB was also able to achieve high yield in garlic without use of fertilizers.

Felix Valenzuela, in his 1,000-square meter farm in Cabuyao, Laguna hit a harvest of 1,600 kilos. This is equivalent to 16 MT per hectare.

Given stability in yield from a garlic variety called “Batangas Brown”, farmers could earn some P120,000 per season.

Patena said IPB aided Valenzuela’s farm in the use of gibberelic acid as growth enhancer for garlic production. Gibberelic acid was earlier found to be effective in enhancing mango growth.

The system of using gibberelic acid for garlic growth will further be tested under a multi-location trial, Patena said.