There has been a bit of discussion, and maybe a bit of confusion, here about double shooting garlic cloves lately. As it is panting time here at the garden of Woz and by chance I had two doubles occur in one of the turban blocks, I thought that I would lift and separate at the same time, taking a couple of photos for here.

Pair number one just fell apart like it was two totally separate cloves planted, which I am sure didn't happen, but can't be ruled out completely. Considering that the two shoot were right next to each other, I cannot see myself that closely planting two cloves



The other one was a different kettle of fish, two shoots from right next to each other on the basil plate, that close that when I went to separate them I was lucky not to cut either stem.

As found
Outer skin peeled off, showing both shoots coming out of the top of the one clove, if left unseparated, this would have resulted in two globes jammed up against each other with smaller than normal cloves.
I cut them apart, first time doing this. Have planted in a separate row so that I can keep track of them

Nice job with the surgery, Whwoz. I've never tried this and I'll be interested to see how they do with being separated.
I believe I read somewhere that there is a genetic component of this tendency, that you can select away from, as well. IDK if there is truth to it, but the author seemed to indicate it had worked over some years of selection within the variety.

Sounds feasible to me @Bower. If you had a particular variety doing it regularly (not the case here, first time for this variety) you would just ensure that you are all the double cloves, if not by separating them out before planting, then by either digging and eating as green garlic or keeping separate at harvest time.

I think I get the first type. When planted, they can't easily be pulled apart without damage because there is no clove peel between them. When their parent bulb formed, there was not a proper skin between those two cloves. It usually looks like a huge clove from while the peel is on, but once the peel is removed it turns out to be a big one plus a skinny one. After they start growing, the normal skin forms on each clove, allowing the easy splitting. I think that is why they came apart easy for you after they started growing.

Personally I never get green sprouts in the "fall" so I would never see two green sprouts so early that I could dig up, split, and put back in the ground for the winter. May corresponds to Nov, right? It has been a while since I even got the garlic in the ground in November, it has been December lately.

The clove that I had to cut in half has the two plants still doing OK, although smaller than the rest of that variety.

I just pulled my garlic the other day before the rain that never showed. But we just got a pop up and it dumped a nice half inch so I'm glad I got it out.

Only one double which is good for me. Bottom right. Pretty good size for each bulb. Heck I do corn that way, garlic should work.

For some reason, I got a lot of doubles in my porcelains this year - just under 50% for two varieties. Never experienced that before, and wonder if the warmer, drier Summer was a factor? The rocamboles, artichokes, and marbled purple stripes all grew normally. I don't sell my garlic & the total yield was still very good, so its really just a question of curiosity.

It is the result of those cloves we find paired together, but not separated by skins, and I find Music has a good number of these things. So I look closely for these, especially with the Music, and I just separate them, and plant both of them (unless one is small). I only got 3 last year, looking fairly quickly, but I looked closer this season, and I don't think any slipped by...we'll find out. I only noticed one, in all the other varieties, and 8 Musics, I split apart.

I've never found any doubles in the porcelains, including Music. So maybe that's a sign that it can be selected out. I grew my stock up from bulbils though, originally, so IDK if that kind of selection would hold up...
Spanish Roja is the one I saw most doubles from, and Lautrec (a creole) seems prone to it as well.

Going back to the OP, yesterday I lifted the garlic resulting from the doubles that I had noted and lifted earlier in the season. Even allowing for what I consider to be a below par season for the turban garlic, with cloves around 10 to 15% than expected, it was not worth the disturbance to the root systems to lift and divide these garlics. If they had been left alone they would have been bigger than the separated plants.
Traf White Turbans plants, the larger two were not disturbed, the two smaller globes nearest them are from the plant that had the surgery shown above and the middle clove is one of the two that fell apart, mentioned above also. Maybe if I had of been able to lift when they plants were smaller they would have done better.

That is a huge difference. Thanks for doing the experiment!