I can still remember that lurking garlic smell in my mother's car during the garlic season. When I was 5 years old it would give me headaches. She still works at Gilroy Foods and still comes home smelling like garlic. Although the smell is the same, her company has made many advances in the kind of garlic it is growing. "We are working on the improvements of garlic," said Max Contin, a genetic engineer. "All the crops we eat are not the same every year. We have improved garlic every year." "Gilroy Foods is interested in making better varieties of what we grow. Better garlic is one that has higher yields in the fields. That makes it cheaper for us to process it and do it with fewer acres," said Contin. Over the last 10 years Gilroy Foods has been able to increase its yields by 25 percent. Gilroy Foods has done this by growing garlic that can mature at different times. "This allows Gilroy Foods to process the same number of pounds by just running Gilroy Foods longer," said Contin. Most of the garlic that is processed at Gilroy Foods is grown in Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, the Central Valley, Nevada and Oregon. Currently Max is working on cross-breeding a garlic that is immune to two diseases. One of the viruses stunts the growth of the garlic and the other is called "white rot" and turns the garlic into mush. "Plants also get yucky things that come from fungi. This makes the garlic soft and it rots. It breaks down the cell walls and becomes mushy," said Contin. Contin said to do this he must look at the different varieties of garlic. Once he finds the trait he is looking for he crosses those traits with the garlic that has the characteristics he wants. Contin said he is hoping he will be able to grow a garlic that is immune to those viruses. This process, he said, could take five to 10 years. Gilroy Foods is also trying to produce a garlic that flowers, so that the garlic can reproduce itself.
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