The experiment was carried out at Embrapa Hortaliças, Brasília, Brazil, aiming to evaluate the response of garlic plants to different water regimes in the soil at two development stages. Treatments, arranged in a factorial scheme 4 x 4, resulted from the combination of four water tensions in the vegetative stage (20; 40; 80; and 160 kPa) and four in the bulbfication (20; 40; 80; and 160 kPa). Plants submitted to soil water deficits in any crop stage had the vegetative growth, marketable yield, bulb size, and water use efficiency reduced up to 70%, 63%, 31%, and 57%, respectively. Plant vegetative growth and bulb yield were negatively affected even for moderate water deficit in the soil (40 kPa).The number of bulbs per unit of area was linearly reduced only when the plants were submitted to water deficits in the vegetative stage. Percentage of dry and secondary bulb growth, and bulb weight losses were not statistically affected by tensions between 20 and 160 kPa.
Allium sativum; irrigation; irrigation scheduling; soil water level; soil-water-plant relation
