Two field experiments were carried out during the two winters seasons of 2007 / 2008 and 2008/ 2009 at the Experimental Farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Moshtohor Benha University, to study the effect of soaking cloves of both Balady and Chinese garlic cultivars for 24 hours per-planting in solutions of 1000 ppm Mn, 500 ppm Zn or 400 ppm Cu solely or in their possible combinations on plant growth, chemical composition, bulb yield and quality as well as storageability.
Obtained results indicated that, both used cultivars showed significant differences in most of the studied characters. Balady cv. had the best results of some vegetative growth characters (plant height, fresh weight of leaves, neck diameter and bulbing ratio), chemical composition (N, p and K content of both leaves and bulbs), number of cloves per bulb, bulb quality (N, P, K, Mn, Zn, Cu content and total carbohydrates percentage of cloves).Whereas, Chinese cv. showed the highest values of some vegetative growth parameters, i.e., number of leaves, bulb diameter, dry weight of leaves, bulbs and plant, bulb yield and its components, i.e., fresh weigh and dry matter percentage of bulb, fresh weight of single clove as well as total cured yield per feddan and total soluble solids percentage of bulbs. Furthermore, Chinese cv. showed the least weight loss and diseases infection percentage during storage period for six months.
The micronutrients treatments significantly and positively affected all the studied characters.
From the obtained results, it can be recommended that soaking garlic cloves for 24 hours per-planting in mixture of 1000 ppm Mn+ 400 ppm Cu in case of Balady cv. or in 1000 ppm Mn+500 ppm Zn in case of Chinese cv. to obtain maximum values of most studied variables.