Hello from Texas Gulf Coast

[Fisherman]

Hello,
I am new to tobacco growing and want to succeed at first attempt..... I plan to grow 150 plants in pots as I am renting and have no acess to garden spot at the moment.
I got my seeds sprouted in3 days..... messed up sorta and used wet coffee grounds to make a mass large enuff to spread seeds on peat cups.. now have 144 cups with 10 sprouts in each... Some coffee mold is present but reducing moisture has helped. No adverse effect yet from it noticed... Plants are just not progressing at rate the germination led me to think.

I am ordering 200 5-gal buckets and 500 quart ones and need to know how many drying chambers i need to build???? I sprouted flue cured virginia bright palnts... Since I want to save seeds Im not growing the burley this year or may and put a few at another site.

Any and all advice is appreciated......

On the drying chamber subject.... Everywhere i read i see small plans and diagrams for chambers but all fail to really tell you what is being done in these chambers. I raised gamefowl for many years and understand temp and humidity.... as these factors are critical to good hatch rates. My point is that basically all you need is control over heat and humidity and therefore source of each is not important.... I liked the ideas of the deepfreeze chambers but think that standing upright [ the chest type] would allow better control maybe?

At any rate I am here for the season and for all the help I can get and eventually offer.
Mike

 

[Knucklehead]

The tobacco FAQ's at the top of the page is a great place to start. You can cure the plants by hanging them in a shed. Tobacco improves with age and it takes about a year of natural aging for the tobacco to reach it's full potential as far as taste and lack of harshness goes. Or you can build a kiln to speed age the leaves for about a month. This is done after curing.

Read the threads on curing and if you have any questions afterwards feel free to ask. The folks on this forum are very knowledgeable and don't mind helping out. There's already some Texans here and they will be best at advising you on curing in your area. Wwelcome to the forum.

 

[DGBAMA]

welcome.

from what I have read, a fast sprouting/germination followed by a couple/few weeks of "dormancy" where there is little visible growth is normal. No worry, it is actually the roots that are growing during this time. After the "root establishment" time is when things really start to happen quickly.

This year will be my first grow too so if I am off a little I am sure one of the veterans will chime in and correct me but it sounds like you are off to a good start.

If you have mould, I would recommend moving the sprouts to individual cells with a good potting/starting mix.

 

[leverhead]

Welcome Fisherman! I'll have 20 days since I put seeds on the peat and they only have 2 leaves. The roots are starting to branch out, once the roots get going then the plant will start grow faster. Read the FAQ and be careful with the fertilizer! I'm putting together a post about my seed starting, it should go up later tonight.

Drying chamber? Are you talking about the flue-cure threads here? If you are, read them through and join in.

 

[johnlee1933]

Welcome Fisherman, You have seem several references to curing. I think waht you asked referred to "color curing". This is the first step in turning your fresh green leaf into "cured" tobacco. There are lots of other steps but this is the first.

 

[Fisherman]

WOW!
This is an active bunch and I am hoping we will get to know each other as the growing and harvesting season goes by.

I usually succeed at most everything I try except spelling and grammer so bear with me... Keep in mind that one's definition of success and accomlishing one;s goal is not always the same... I am not saying that in this endevor that I will produce a perfect product but rahter I will hopefully sicceed at raising a good smoke and therefore not spending 2K a year as I do now and hope to have the enjoyment that a harvest brings. Hopefully we wont have any hurricanes here this year but we are long overdue... Bottom line is that I don;t care what I spend to accomplish this scenario..... I will put in whatever funds it takes to do it right...

Many thanks for the encouragement about the seedling's apparant dormancy.. I am somewhat impatient.

But one must think ahead. Past the potting stage and towards the processing stage... Yes, I have counted my chickens before they hatched and many times I was glad... Is nothing worse than hatching to many to raise

I ran across many temperature and humidity controllers and some are fair priced for what I expect of them and some designed for the greenhouse fellas are great sounding , cheaper BUT are limited to less than 120deg F..

Is it possible to post the name and spec for these controllers and see what we all think of them? The main one all the forums promote along with the free kiln plans is pretty primitive and I am planning a bigger kiln to go along with a few small ones just in case.... Lately I have been planning to build a powder coating booth and if you "google" for plans you will see some really cool cabinets that can easily be adapted to our needs here... Most are built with sheet metal or aluminum flashing and the steel 2x4's they sell at hardware stores. Using a larger humidity and temp controller would really make one ideal I think.

Im all anxious and hope that my 200 plants will produce what I want ........ even tho I have no idea what in pounds of green leaf that will be or what each picking can yield etc....... but i want to be prepared.
Mike

 

[Fisherman]

Welcome Fisherman! I'll have 20 days since I put seeds on the peat and they only have 2 leaves. The roots are starting to branch out, once the roots get going then the plant will start grow faster. Read the FAQ and be careful with the fertilizer! I'm putting together a post about my seed starting, it should go up later tonight.

Drying chamber? Are you talking about the flue-cure threads here? If you are, read them through and join in.

Hi Leverhead,
You probably have the same climate I have here in Port Lavaca so I will be bothering you pretty regular I fear. Hope you like fishing and seafood because I have like 1 day left of working on my new houseboat which has been a 2 year project.

You are 10 days ahead of me on germination too

I seem to get a little involved in my hobbys. I noticed I already went from 150 plants to 200 BUT i did mention buying 200 pots in first post so as my ex would say....... that is not being "obsessive".

I am a picture taker and like to post pictures and will do so a lot.

Did you use the expandable peat pellets to sprout in? I did and noticed 1 cell that had all pale yellow sprouts...... Im trying to extra fertilize that one to see if it is a "weak" cell or possibly that that paticular cell is suffering from the coffee mold ......... The mold dissappeared almost entirely when I raised the plastic top one one end.

One thing I am good at is asking questions.... Is only way to learn and I love to share what I learn as well so I am not one way
Mike
PS thanks again for responce

 

[indianjoe]

Welcome Fisherman Mike,
like Knuckes said, the FAQ at the top are a great place to get a lot of initial information.

 

[leverhead]

You probably have the same climate I have here in Port Lavaca so I will be bothering you pretty regular I fear. ......so as my ex would say....... that is not being "obsessive".

The weather is pretty much the same, a few degrees warmer there in the winter and a few degrees cooler there in the summer. The humidity on the coast might give you some fits (mold), but that will give you a chance to find some creative solutions. Obsessive is a relative term, I'm not obsessive, everybody just thinks I am.

If you have one cup that's going yellow, it might be mold. Be careful with the fertilizer, too much Urea on seedlings is the kiss of death. Read the post I did last night, if you're growing Viginias, download that PDF. It will tell you a bunch stuff.

 

[Knucklehead]

Read the Grow Blogs of leverhead and BarG, another Texan. The Grow Blog of Deluxestogie is a must read. He's a Virginian so the weather is different but he's very methodical and scientific in his approach to all things. As a matter of fact, you will learn something from everyone's Log's but I'd start with those three for your situation. (After the FAQ's)

 

[Fisherman]

Well dammmmmmmm.

Thanks to all the folks here, I am now a despicable snobby tobacco elitist

Once it was simply go to the store and buy my favorite pack and that was it. No thought. no strain on my last few remaining brain cells.....................

Now as I sit at my desk surrounded by 13 glass jars and containers of various smokes and leaf preperations...................... I have to constantly think and decide on what to treat myself with........

Is one of them cunundrum things i think?

 

[janetta007]

Sounds like you had an awesome harvest year.

 

[MarcL]

I don't know how you made it here behind me. And, I see you're in front of me some how so, welcome.