Faced with the problem of overexploitation of underground water resources in Guanajuato, Mexico, horticultural growers are changing their traditional irrigation methods to other more efficient ones, for example, drip irrigation. The effect of different strategies of water management with this system on yield and quality is not well known. For this reason, an experiment was conducted during the fall-winter period of 2001-02 with garlic cv. Tacatzcuaro, to evaluate its response to Soil Water Tension (SWT). The treatments were: T1 (9, 7 and 8 kPa), T2 (9, 7 and 19 kPa), T3 (9, 11 and 28 kPa), and T4 (19, 11 and 8 kPa). Every SWT corresponded to the periods: 0 to 90, 91 to 130 and 131 to 185 days after sowing. The yield was 29.3, 27.9, 26.0 and 22.3 t·ha-1 of bulb; water use efficiency was 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 2.5 kg·m-3; respectively for T1, T2, T3 and T4. The bulb caliber with the highest yield proportion was Super Colossal (70 to 75 mm diameter). The maximum number of whole bulb skins was 5.6 in T3 and the minimum was 4.3 in T2. Clove pungency (alliin and total thiosulfinates) decreased when SWT increased at the end of analyzed period (T2 and T3). The gradual increase of SWT during growth cycle (T3) was found to be the best strategy of water management with drip irrigation.

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