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Aaron 2012 log

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Aaron

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My plants seem to be growing now so i figured it's time to start my own log to track experiences. Hopefully I'll make it to harvest and get to attempt curing. It's been a great learning experience so far and to start with I'd like to thank everyone here for all their help and this forum!

I started by ordering some seeds online. 3 varieties, Little Dutch, White Mammoth, and Kentucky Burley 8635. I made the mistake of starting my seeds in coconut pellets. I had good germination but very slow growth due to lack of nutrients. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't have any plants to put in the ground so I decided to order some transplants from BigBonner. From Bonner i ordered 10 each of Burley, Bright Leaf, Perique, Havana 142, and Maryland 609. The transplants were awesome. I set them all in the ground, even some extras he was kind enough to send. I made the mistake of watering too much when I planted and put them all into a shock. The next few days we had some extreme sun all day with temps in the mid 90's. I believe that stressed the plants even more. Then to make it worse, I think I waited too long before watering again. Oh well, lesson learned. It saddens me to say that I lost quite a few plants from this. I should also add that I have poor soil that I'm planting in too, with a high ph and low nitrogen levels. Fast forward two weeks and I now have 3 Burley, 9 Bright leaf, 7 Perique, 3 Havana, and 1 Maryland. Of all the ones left alive probably 7 or 8 of them really took a beating are are just now starting to grow again. The Havanas and the Maryland I swear came back from the dead. I think the fact that any have survived at all is a testament to how strong these transplants were.

Last weekend i tried to transplant some of my seedlings. I set 1 of my White Mammoth and 2 of the Little Dutch that seem to be holding their own and maybe even starting to grow a tiny bit. My Burley's are still a bit small to transplant yet. Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to get in another 10-15 of each.

This morning I took a few pictures of some of the plants that have had the worst time.
This first pic is of the plant the a deer decided to eat the whole top of of. It's starting to sprout some new leaves. I thought for sure that one was a goner.
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This is my one Maryland that seems to be growing back from the dead.
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This is one of the Havana that decided to start growing again
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This is one of the Burley that's hanging on.
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Then for fun I figured I'd throw in a picture of my biggest plant which is a Bright leaf.
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Thanks for looking!

Aaron
 

Rayshields

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Aaron,
Thanks for sharing your efforts and lessons learning. Keep hanging in there. Tobacco plants are tenacious and some will surprise you with how they can come back from near dead. I had a cut worm cut off one of my best Virginia Bright Leaf plants. It was cut completely off, but had one hair sized root still attached. I put it back in a styrofoam cup and put it in some partial shade. It is now in a big pot and thriving...it is about one sixth the size of its siblings. Just keep tending to your plants and you will end up with some to cure.
 

Rayshields

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Aaron,
Thanks for sharing your efforts and lessons learned. Keep hanging in there. Tobacco plants are tenacious and some will surprise you with how they can come back from near dead. I had a cut worm cut off one of my best Virginia Bright Leaf plants. It was cut completely off, but had one hair sized root still attached. I put it back in a styrofoam cup and put it in some partial shade. It is now in a big pot and thriving...it is about one sixth the size of its siblings. Just keep tending to your plants and you will end up with some to cure.
 

BarG

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It appears there all survivors. I don't count my first attempt as a season. Out of 600 seeds I had 6 or 7 make it in the ground just by luck. It smoked well even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing in 2010. 2011 had a real pretty crop that didn't smoke well at all due to wrong fertilizer. This year after 2 attempts , alot of paying attention to advice, and participating on FTT, I believe I'll be able to harvest and smoke my tobacco this year. Air drying and curing has not been an issue , I hope that won't be a new obstacle to deal with.

Good luck Aaron and don't give up.
 

Aaron

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To be honest, the only goal I set for myself this year is to experience all the steps of home growing tobacco. The ratio of failure to success is not too important to me. I kinda figure as long as a few survive to the end I'm happy to make my mistakes now so I can avoid them next year.

I have no thoughts of giving up now. I've got many plans for next year. I just started a compost pile, and I'm planning on planting some fava or clover this fall as a cover crop to try to improve my soil a bit.
 

BarG

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Thats a great attitude for success. Much like my own when I got hooked on trying to learn about tobacco growing, Before a halfway decent internet access in my case.
 

Aaron

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Another hurdle. I noticed i have three plants that are dying at ground level. I'm guessing this is a form of damping-off. In the picture I brushed the soil back to show the stem a little lower. Where the brown starts was the soil level. Any chance of saving these plants? Should I be worried about it spreading to other plants?
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Aaron

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Things are moving along in the baccy patch. In the last couple weeks I've managed to get a few of my seedlings in the ground. So far they seem to doing well. I've kept them covered this go round in an attempt to keep them from cooking in the sun while they are setting their roots a bit.

The covered row on the right has 7 little dutch under it and the covered section on the left has 5 KY 8635.
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A little white mammoth that I planted a couple weeks ago. This was my test to see if I could keep one of my seedlings alive in the ground. It seems to be doing good.
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Here are a few of my survivors. The tiny one (second from the bottom) is the one a deer ate to top of.
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This coming weekend I will get the rest of my seedlings planted. Probably another 20 or so.

Thanks for looking!

Aaron :)
 

Aaron

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I've been getting a good bit of rain the last couple weeks. Mostly light evening showers that are keeping everything from drying out. I haven't had to water, which has been nice, but I'm thinking the extra cloud cover in the evenings has slowed things down a little. Last night we had a pretty good storm move through that brought some heavy rain. It laid one of my plants down but I got it staked and tied upright again and I don't think it hurt it much. My covered rows are coming along now. When I first covered them I had used a polishing cloth that i had laying around. It seemed to work ok as long as I kept it stretched out as much as possible so more light could shine through, but I've figured out even then it was still blocking too much sun and slowing my growth more than I want. I've switched all that cloth out with cheese cloth now. It is working much better. The cheese cloth lets enough sun through that they will wilt nicely during the day and stand back up at night, yet it blocks just enough sun to keep them from drying to a crisp. I'm hopeful that next year I'll have stronger seedlings and get them planted much earlier in the year so I won't have to mess with covering them.

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Thanks for looking!

Aaron :)
 

Chicken

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im liking the way the chesse, cloth is helping you,,,,a very good idea, indeed,

and as far as you plant falling,

well thats the reason i try ti stake my plant's.

Everyone of them...most wont fall during the growing season,

but thoise that have the urge to fall, are protected,

best to have them protected, than vulnerable,
 

Aaron

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Just last week I was thinking to myself how lucky I'd been so far to not have many insect problems this year, other than a couple grasshoppers and tree crickets.
Then, yesterday I found some dang aphids on three of my plants. Tiny little buggers aren't they. I probably wouldn't have noticed them except I saw several ants and ladybugs crawling on one of the plants that caught my attention. I sprayed them off real good yesterday morning with some soap water and seems to have gotten the majority of them. Today I took a few pictures of some that survived. Tomorrow morning I'll spray them off real good again and cross my fingers that I won't need to use any insecticides.

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On the positive side of things I was able to remove the cheesecloth cover from some of my little plants a couple days ago and they seem to be doing good now in the full sun.

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:)
 

johnlee1933

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Aaron, I had them this year for the first time. I had to soap every day. Not because I didn't kill them but because they multiply so rapidly. Soap every day but especially after a strong rain. For me they went after the tender new growth the most.

J
 

BarG

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I haven't seen to many pictures of them suckers on a baccy plant. Thanks for posting.
I think your the first member has. I never had them.
 

Chicken

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^^^^^

thats hard to believe,

you sure you know a sucker when you see one,???

or maybe thier is no '' suckers'' in texas,,,lol
 

Aaron

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I ended up spraying them three days in a row. Looks like I got them all. I haven't seen one for three days now. I'm keeping a close eye on them all now, checking before and after work.
 
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