In 2008 we were very lucky to be able to get two of the three cultivars of Virus-Free garlic , some Duganski, a Glazed Purple Stripe and some Sofia, a Rocambole from Bulgaria. Since the Rocambole would not grow in our climate I grew out a few of the Duganski, which turned out to be a Glazed Purple Stripe. It grew out quite nicely for me and was the tallest garlic in my garden and the resultant bulbs were some of the largest I grew this year. I'll replant them this fall and keep you posted on their progress. I'm anxious to find out more about them and how well they do compared to other garlics, particularly Glazed Purple Stripes.

This is good news for growers all over the country and especially the warm winter growers have something to cheer about as the Artichokes and Marbled Purple Stripes both do well in warm winter areas. A Marbled Purple Stripe called Metechi is always the biggest and best in our garden year after year.

Why does virus-free have any special appeal and how do they do it? At this point I'm not entirely clear as to all the features and benefits of virus-free garlic but I can tell you how they are developed and that ridding a cultivar of viruses causes the garlic to grow larger and heavier than the same cultivars the contain viruses. I'm not sure what effects being virus-free has on the health benefits of garlic but researchers have shown in the past that denser, heavier varieties, Porcelains, in particular had greater capability to produce Allicin, from which the most healthy fat-soluble compounds are derived.

All natural garlics contain some viruses; it's what happens out in the wild. Life happens. These viruses have no known harmful effects on humans but apparently only affect the garlics and most of their effects are unknown although a few are; for example, the yellow streak virus carried by wheat curl mites cause a garlics leaves to show some yellow streaks but their effects on the clove is minimal if anything. If a garlic bulb has a viral contamination, and they all do, almost every part of the plant is affected. All, in fact but the tiniest growing tip where the virus has not yet gotten a grip on the plant. This tiny growing tip, called a meristem, is snipped out under a microscope and tediously grown out from that tip and that virus-free tip will eventually grow into a full size plant and develop a bulb with multiple cloves and the cloves will also be virus-free and can be replanted to produce virus-free offspring. It takes several years of replanting all or most of the cloves for a single virus-free bulb to reproduce into a marketable number of bulbs to base a virus-free seed garlic business on. They are still a few years from widespread distribution.

Removing the viruses causes the bulbs to get bigger and denser. This is only the second effort I know of ever to produce virus-free garlic. The earlier one was done in California in the 1980s but the grower discontinued his program because it produced such large garlics , over 3" in diameter, that he had a hard time selling such large garlics and he quit doing it. I understand he is retired now and no longer involved. Our virus-free garlics were produced by a different retired plant pathologist and grown in Oregon and we're ready to try again so we can see for ourselves what the results are and are inviting our customers to try them also and see how they do for them.

To my knowledge, we are the only place in the country at this time offering virus-free garlics for sale on the internet although there may be others I don't know about. They were not grown organically and normally we would not handle such garlic but since there is no source of organically grown virus-free garlics, these can be introduced into an organic operation and their offspring, if grown by a certified organic grower would become certified organic next year. They're a little pricy but so is everything that is truly rare.

Are virus-free garlics acceptable in an organic program? I don't know as I have never seen any prohibition against it. It is not a genetically modified organism, it is only a modern extension of the ancient art of rooting plants to produce offspring. Do virus-free garlics have the same health benefits? I don't know but I would think so since the chemical reactions would seem to be unchanged by the presence or absence of the viruses. Are these particular viruses any kind of enemy? I doubt it. Does eliminating the viruses have any kind of advantage? Only in that the garlic grows larger and denser with the same effort and most growers find that to be a desireable trait.

What is the future of these V-F garlics? How long will they stay virus-free? I don't know. Nobody knows how many years it took garlic to pick up all its viruses. Nobody knows how long it would take to re-acquire some more of them via insects, etc. or how often new virus-free planting stock would have to be purchased in order to assure an essentially virus-free crop. Growers naturally have to replenish their planting stock every few years anyway due to weather or diseases or pests or pesticide drift or whatever.

We're stepping out on unexplored turf here. Whacking out new trails, so to speak. We'll learn as we go.