Pakistani scientists have made a breakthrough by developing the highest-yield garlic variety which is suitable for growing in all provinces of the country.
In view of the present demand and yield gap, garlic variety development programme was launched under the vegetable crop research programme at the National Agricultural Research Centre.
The scientists at NARC who participated in this programme say that efforts are being made to make available the garlic seeds to farmers across the country ahead of its growing season which starts in October.
The new garlic variety, `NARC-G1` is the highest garlic variety among all the existing garlic variants in the country. The quality was found to be superior with 26 tonnes yield per hectare.
It has higher nutrient contents and medicinal value with suitability to pharmaceutical, food processing industry and household level. Moreover, farmers`income will also increase due to low expenditure on plant protection and higher yield potential, ultimately reducing the import bill.
This newly-developed variety of garlic was presented at the variety evaluation committee of agricultural research scientists from all over the country at a meeting of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council to determine the potential of this new variant.
Currently, Pakistan is spending precious foreign exchange on the import of garlic due to high demand and low yield potential of existing varieties. Latest estimates showed that the country is importing 34,375 tonnes of garlic from China, India, and Chile worth 66 million rupees.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is the major garlic-producing province with 32,205 tonnes, followed by Punjab with 24,143 tonnes, Balochistan 7,880 tonnes and Sindh 6,557 tonnes.
