A practical breakdown of bulk seed garlic ordering for commercial farms, covering variety-specific clove counts, acre-scale planting formulas, equipment-driven spacing calculations, and common ordering mistakes that cost growers thousands of dollars each season.
If there is one decision that can make or break a commercial garlic operation before a single clove hits the ground, it is ordering the right amount of bulk seed garlic. Order too little and planting crews run out of seed with empty beds still prepped and waiting. Order too much and thousands of dollars in capital sit in storage. Either way, it is a costly mistake. Zack Schallert, the CEO and Lead Grower at Basaltic Farms in Northern California, spent his first several years figuring this out the hard way. As he describes it, the team made mistakes, then made more mistakes, and even more mistakes before they finally developed a system that actually works. He had no idea what he was doing when it came to calculating seed for a full acre. He just wants to save other growers some of that headache. And that headache starts with one variable that changes everything. The number of plantable cloves in a pound of seed garlic is completely different depending on the variety. That single factor can mean the difference between ordering two thousand pounds or five hundred pounds for the exact same acre. Here is how the numbers break down. Large hardneck garlic like Music, which is a porcelain type, produces four to seven cloves per bulb with six to eight bulbs per pound. That works out to roughly twenty-four to forty-two plantable cloves per pound. Now compare that to a softneck artichoke variety like Inchelium Red, which produces twelve to twenty cloves per bulb and can deliver ninety-six to two hundred forty cloves per pound. For a commercial operation targeting ninety-four thousand plants per acre, that difference is massive. A grower planting Music needs roughly twenty-two hundred to thirty-nine hundred pounds of seed per acre. A grower planting Inchelium Red needs roughly four hundred to nine hundred eighty pounds per acre for the same plant population. At seed garlic prices, that variety selection decision alone represents thousands of dollars per acre. Schallert describes it this way. It is like ordering lumber for a house without knowing the dimensions. A grower ends up either short or sitting on way more material than needed. Neither one is good for the bottom line. So the first question in any bulk seed order is not how many pounds to buy. It is which varieties to grow. Now the spacing math. Commercial garlic spacing starts with equipment, not agronomy. Tractor wheelbase determines bed width. Implement width determines how many rows fit per bed. Mechanical weeding clearance sets the minimum spacing between plants. Basaltic Farms uses a sixty-seven inch tractor wheelbase with three rows per bed spaced twenty inches apart. Within-row spacing of three inches produces approximately ninety-four thousand plants per acre. Tighten that to two inches and the population jumps to around one hundred forty thousand. Open it up to six inches and it drops to roughly forty-seven thousand. Schallert learned early that overlooking implement dimensions creates real problems. In the early years, the mechanical weeder fingers were hitting garlic leaves as they grew outward because the team had not accounted for that width. They had to stop mechanical weeding earlier than planned and ended up doing far more hand weeding, which is expensive when paying for labor. But those numbers only work if the soil can support the density. Cramming one hundred forty thousand plants into an acre of poor soil produces tiny bulbs with no market value. The same density in properly amended soil can produce premium-grade garlic. Schallert is emphatic about this. Get a soil report before doing anything else. Everything, the spacing, the variety selection, the seed order, all build on what the soil can actually support. Every bulk order should also include three to five percent extra above the calculated need. Seed garlic is a natural product with inherent variability. Some cloves arrive damaged. Clove counts vary batch to batch. For a two-thousand-pound order, that means ordering two thousand one hundred pounds. The five biggest ordering mistakes commercial growers make are using generic clove-per-pound estimates instead of variety-specific data, ignoring equipment constraints when planning density, ordering seed too late, losing access to popular varieties, failing to test soil before committing to a plant population, and choosing varieties based solely on seed cost rather than market value per bulb. That last point deserves emphasis. Softneck varieties are cheaper to plant per acre because each pound contains more cloves. But hardneck varieties often command significantly higher market prices. The most profitable operation is not the one with the lowest seed cost. It is the one with the best margin between total input cost and total revenue. Now here is the important timing piece. Basaltic Farms opens seed garlic presales at the beginning of March each year. The presale operates on a first-come, first-served basis. Bulk buyers who order early receive first access to larger seed sizes, including jumbo and large-grade bulbs, which produce the strongest commercial harvests. Popular varieties sell out fast once presales open, so commercial growers who have already calculated their variety mix and quantities are in the best position to secure what they need. Seed garlic ships at the end of August through early September after proper curing at the farm. For growers who discover the farm outside of presale season, Basaltic Farms also offers several products available year-round. Organic freeze-dried garlic preserves the full flavor of the farm's volcanic-grown varieties in a shelf-stable format. Garlic honey combines raw honey with organic garlic. An organic garlic growing kit gives home gardeners everything they need to start growing their own supply. Schallert sees helping new commercial growers as central to the farm's mission. He dreams of helping other families get into growing garlic and says there is plenty of market share for everyone to succeed. It is hard work, he says, but so very rewarding. Basaltic Farms is a triple-certified organic garlic farm offering bulk seed garlic volume discounts at basalticfarms dot com. Basaltic Farms City: McArthur Address: 641200 Beck Elliot Lane Website: https://basalticfarms.com/