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classification of varietals

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SmokeStack

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In light of trying to keep posts on topic, I am posting this topic as a spur from Deluxestogie's Grow Blog - in particular, the results of his cross pollination experiment to determine whether or not Mt. Pima and Papante belong to the species N. Rustica. I am curious to know how tobacco varietals are classified, that is, as Burley, Flue-Cured, Maryland, Orientals, Dark Air, Cigar Leaf (filler, binder or wrapper), etc.

Now that Bob has provided compelling evidence from his experiment as how to distinguish between two different tobacco species, I thought the next step would be to devise a methodology to classify varietals of N. Tabacum into the aforementioned categories (that is Burleys, Flue-Cured, Maryland, etc.). Whether classifying varietals depends on physical attributes of the plant (like leaf size, nicotine levels, the presence of certain proteins or carbohydrates) or if it depends on genetic factors (DNA), I don't know the answer. But I think it would be an invaluable asset for many of us "tobacconists" to investigate this matter.

Perhaps the answer is already out there in which case you can inform me by simply replying. If not, we could put our minds together and come up with something. We don't have to rely on information "floating out there" and pass it along while complacently assuming we have accomplished something. Instead, we can be the pioneers (as Bob has demonstrated) and formulate a novel convention for varietal classification. Maybe I am putting too much emphasis on this matter, but, nevertheless, there is a classification system and I would like to determine its significance.

With that said, it all comes down to enjoying a delightful smoke - so who cares how about a classification system? But if it provides the least bit of our understanding of tobacco, I am all for it.:)

Any ideas?
 

Jitterbugdude

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That's going to be pretty tough. Sucrose ester content can probably be ruled out becasue you have Orientals with a lot of sugar and you have Orientals with zero sugar. pH can probably also be ruled out because the pH of tobacco is all over the board. One of these days I'll post my pH measurements I've taken on about 20 or so different tobaccos. I think for starters you need to come up with a classification list such as:

Burley
Oriental
Virginia
Primitive
Maryland
etc

Once everyone has agreed to what the classifications are then the hard part of seperating them from one another could begin

If it helps, the USDA already has a classification system for tobacco. I do not know how it was derived. I can post it if anyone is interested but a search might reveal that FmGrowit already did.
 

deluxestogie

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USDA began its classifications based on "traditional" use, that is to say, based on how the various varieties from specific growing regions were then being used commercially. Needless to say, it makes little sense. At one time, burley (which does possess some distinguishing characteristics) was used extensively for cigar wrappers. By the time the USDA initiated its classifications, burley had pretty much fallen out of favor as a wrapper, replaced by leaf from other regions.

Since the entire tobacco world utilizes the current USDA system (which the USDA has incidentally washed its hands of), I'm not sure if re-definitions would be useful. Perhaps a new terminology, such as "FTT suitability rating," could be put forward. Even this would be relative.

A large, flat, smooth leaf leaf, with good tensile strength, flexibility and elasticity (like CT Shade or Bezuki) is ideal for wrapping large cigars. But I've used ridiculously small leaves (Izmir Ozbas) as wrapper for small cigars. I've used primitive varieties with splayed veins for wrapper on tapered cigars.

Some varieties look like good wrapper candidates, but taste peculiar on the tongue. These often make superb binders.

Leaf with a rumpled surface or undulating margins will never lie or wrap flat, but this has no bearing on fillers.

I guess that what I'm saying is that suitability is in the eye of the beholder. Flue-cured (low pH) tobacco makes a good cigar filler if blended with a high pH variety (e.g. Perique-processed leaf). It's all in what you decide to do with it.

Calling something wrapper or binder or filler or pipe blender or cigarette blender or chew ingredient becomes meaningless when all the growth, harvesting, curing and finishing decisions are in your own hands.

Bob
 

SmokeStack

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I was under the assumption that varieties differed by some inherent biological features - something along the lines of how different species vary - like similarities or differences in the plants' genetic makeup (DNA). I think certain characteristics of varietals have their roots (no pun intended) in genetics but maybe not to the same degree as different species do. It would seem best to classify varieties according to their genetic makeup but I am not sure if that is possible as species is the last in line the biological classification system (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). I don't remember my biology well enough so I may be wrong.

Anyway, I was just trying to make sense of the classification system in place, that is, Burley, Flue Cured, Maryland, etc. Not knowing how to classify Mt. Pima and Papante is what sparked my interest. I'll look into more detail on how the USDA system was established - that seems like a logical starting point.
 

deluxestogie

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One of the real problems in determining genetic relationships between various N. tabacum varieties is the lack of consistency in the analytic techniques. When comparing the nuclear DNA, one gets entirely different results than when comparing mitochondrial DNA, or the DNA from other episomes. It's a real mess!

Below is a "tree" of genetic distance for a select few varieties. It makes no sense.

From: Ren N and Timko MP:AFLP analysis of genetic polymorphism and evolutionary relationships among cultivated and wild Nicotiana species. Genome 44: 559–571 (2001).

NicotianaEvolutionaryRelationships_diagram.png


I fully expect Smyrna and Izmir to be closely related, but not close to Trabzon (derived from Samsun seed). Researchers in Macedonia have demonstrated the genetic similarity of Prilep and Xanthi (they look similar and are grown in nearby regions), yet the diagram above shows Xanthi and Prilep differing by as much as Xanthi and Big Cuban. It shows Smyrna as more similar to Orinoco than to Xanthi. It's just nuts.

Rather than looking at similarity among DNA fragments (the approach used above), the research needs to identify a subset of key phenotypic attributes, then look for the presence or absence of the genes that determine the expression of those key attributes.

Bob
 

SmokeStack

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One of the real problems in determining genetic relationships between various N. tabacum varieties is the lack of consistency in the analytic techniques. When comparing the nuclear DNA, one gets entirely different results than when comparing mitochondrial DNA, or the DNA from other episomes. It's a real mess!

Below is a "tree" of genetic distance for a select few varieties. It makes no sense.

From: Ren N and Timko MP:AFLP analysis of genetic polymorphism and evolutionary relationships among cultivated and wild Nicotiana species. Genome 44: 559–571 (2001).

NicotianaEvolutionaryRelationships_diagram.png


I fully expect Smyrna and Izmir to be closely related, but not close to Trabzon (derived from Samsun seed). Researchers in Macedonia have demonstrated the genetic similarity of Prilep and Xanthi (they look similar and are grown in nearby regions), yet the diagram above shows Xanthi and Prilep differing by as much as Xanthi and Big Cuban. It shows Smyrna as more similar to Orinoco than to Xanthi. It's just nuts.

Rather than looking at similarity among DNA fragments (the approach used above), the research needs to identify a subset of key phenotypic attributes, then look for the presence or absence of the genes that determine the expression of those key attributes.

Bob

I have been trying to make sense of this diagram, but it yields nothing that I can interpret. It seems like an analysis of random DNA segments - I agree with you in that they should compare DNA fragments that are associated with the expression of specific alleles. Though the list of tobaccos used in the study is interesting - there are many varieties that I don't recognize. I will have to read the article so thanks for including the reference.

Marco
 

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Sorry to revive an old thread. I was looking for something along the lines of a phenotypic key, as Deluxe Stogie suggested. I am particularly interested in understanding the terminology about leaf structure and such; however, my involvement in the mycological society of Alberta lends me to comment on the confusion about the genetic chart.

In the mycology world, there is a similar conflict. The old field guides contain genuses and species that were named on the assumption that mushrooms that looked alike, and grew in the same substrate were related closely, and that those that looked different, and grew in different substrates were more distantly related. This worked great in the field because understanding key features such as gill attachment and spore color could help you quickly narrow down a mushroom to a genus.

The problem faced today is that genetics is confusing our understanding of taxonomy: many species have been removed from genera, added, renamed. Genera have been moved to different families, to a point where if one was in the field, trying to identify a mushroom in a vacuum absent of the historical phenotypic taxonomy, they would be hard pressed to narrow findings down to the species.

The reason for this is that the morphological form of a mushroom is greatly influenced by the environment it is adapted to, so for example, a mushroom growing on a tree with no stalk is now found to be genetically similar to one growing on the ground with a stalk. The differences in physical characteristics are because the one growing on the tree does not need to raise up the gills for spore dispersal, and is attached more strongly to the substrate without a stalk. This is just one example where two mushrooms from different genuses are now in a new genus. It works the other way too. Two mushrooms look similar and have the same color of spores and grows under spruce trees and have a symbiotic relationship with them, but are found to be genetically dissimilar, and are then separated into different genera.

So, while genetics absolutely helps the mycologist pinpoint the species in question, it does not help the amateur in the field. The amateur must go by the old taxonomy, then cross reference to the new name.

With tobacco, we are talking about many varieties within one species, as well as a number of varieties within several other species, all within one genera. Thank God the genus hasn't been split!

The positive side of this is that genetics of tobacco may help with determining a course of history in the evolution of tobacco, as well as verify if something is indeed a new varietal. Because morphology is closely linked to the environment, looking at the structure of older strains may shed light into the climate of the regions they originated in, and hint at what plants would do best in different growing conditions. The answer to the question of why Smyrna is more closely related to Orinoco than to Xanthi may be because Smyrna and Xanthi only appear similar because they are both adapted to the same environment. What is it about their structure that gives them an advantage in that environment?
 

istanbulin

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I couldn't retrieve the full text of the paper so I couldn't find any answers to my questions about the study. So I have some objections about it (may be because of not reading the full text) that I do not want to put them into words here.

When you think that the vast differences between human and chimpanzee is because of the 4% percent different DNA it may make sense to find of interestingly different looking cultivars of tobacco being closely related. It may not make sense but a wider aspect helps us to catch the situation.

When it comes to adaptation of tobacco cultivars, in this case Orientals like İzmir, Xanthi etc., the main common ground is climate which is generally hot and dry in summer, during the vegetation period.

Oriental cultivars adopted to drought in these ways, like any other plant may adopt.

- Finish their life cycle during optimum conditions.
This explains why most Orientals bloom more early than, let's say, a cigar tobacco plant.

- Conserve water by reducing water loss.
For example, the reduced (small) leaf size of most Orientals. Drought resistant plants may also reduce stomatal pores and accumulate various compounds.

- Increase water use efficiency of limited available water and maintain growth even during drought.
Accumulation of organic acids, sugars etc. help osmotic adjustement. Accumulating some set of proteins which are produced by the genes which are found to be responsible for drought resistance also helps maintaining the growth. Retaining water content is also important and soil type looks like a key element on this.
 

Smokin Harley

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I have been trying to make sense of this diagram, but it yields nothing that I can interpret. It seems like an analysis of random DNA segments - I agree with you in that they should compare DNA fragments that are associated with the expression of specific alleles. Though the list of tobaccos used in the study is interesting - there are many varieties that I don't recognize. I will have to read the article so thanks for including the reference.

Marco
Ok, its been years since I looked at my horticulture books but I THINK that just for example if you look towards the bottom of that diagram at where Criollo and Big Cuban are linked to the immediate left by a common bracket...I'm guessing that they are derived from a cross from the same parent plants but displayed a different habit of some kind. Further growings after that cross ,they kept true to certain characteristics within that result .what puzzles me is the number "82" on the joining bracket . Also at the very top you see Xanthi and Awa and the number "63" but at the far right of the page from those very varieties you see they are from Japan and USA . what may have happened is the hybrid seed was taken from one country to the other and something happened in the grow out , maybe a soil difference, maybe a zone or climate difference..,drought tolerance ,shade tolerance,maybe even a salt water tolerance, etc .but whatever it was the result of the cross something changed genetically that was not a perfect match to each other in a side by side comparison, so- they had to become labeled differently.
 

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On this note, we were talking down at the tobacconist today about whether Nicotiana tabacum existed in the old world before the discovery of the Americas. What do you think? Did it exist, but wasn't discovered to be smokeable until the American natives taught us that it could be done?
 

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On this note, we were talking down at the tobacconist today about whether Nicotiana tabacum existed in the old world before the discovery of the Americas. What do you think? Did it exist, but wasn't discovered to be smokeable until the American natives taught us that it could be done?

Unless I'm mistaken, Nicotiana Tabacum was bred in Peru and possibly other parts of South America. Nicotiana Rustica was mainly grown in North America. Then John Smith or some other colonist began exporting the seed to the Va. colony.
 

deluxestogie

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A discussion of tobacco before Columbus: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/181-Tobacco-Varieties-Before-Columbus

Bob

EDIT: It took me quite a while to locate this thread, even though I wrote it. [The forum search engine is too primitive.] So, I added a category on "Tobacco History" to the Key Forum Threads index (http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3868-Key-threads-in-the-FTT-forum). If there are other tobacco history threads that you think should be added to the index, PM me with the thread's URL.
 
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