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My first year, What I have learned

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Daniel

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I started back in January practicing getting plants started. 4 batches of seed grown to 6 weeks of age with nothing but the goal of finding out what works and what works better.

Keep in mind I never say that any method is best. there is only better and that can always be improved on. Also what works for me may not work for you and your situation.

I have a couple of terms I have come into the habit of using. First is the word sprout. A sprout in my definition is any plant that has less then 4 true leaves.
Second is a start. a start is any plant that has 4 or more true leaves but is not growing outdoors.

finally a plant. a plant is growing outdoors or must be grown in a pot larger than 6 inches in diameter for those growing completely indoors.

This post will only cover from the seed through start period.

Seed Germination.
This is a seperate issue and requires almost completely opposite conditions for best success. Different soil, different moisture and to some degree even different temperatures.

I like to use finely sifted potting soil. (note not potting mix) potting soil is different than potting mix and does not include added fertilizers. I found that seed does not start as well in potting mix or in peat moss quite as well as it does on potting soil. Both alternatives will still work but seed may be delayed in development anywhere from a couple to several days. I have example of sprouts right now that look to be about 5 days behind my best efforts of the past because they where started in potting mix rather than potting soil. Peat moss and vermiculite mix works better than potting mix and I have had sprouts start slower in it but make up the growth once transplanted. Peat Moss and vermiculite are a good alternative choice.

I use a small 4 inch by 6 inch plastic box with about an inch of soil in the bottom to start all my seed in. I get the soil soaking wet but not wet enough to have standing water on the surface. For germinating the seed i want very wet conditions and i want to keep it wet. I sow the seed on top of the soil and then cover the container with plastic wrap or place it in a baggy. I also want to keep the seed at or as close to 90 degrees as I can. lower temperatures will still work but germination is slower at lower temps.

Keep the oil wet and the temperature as high as possible until the seed germinates.


There has been a lot of discussion about light and germination of seed. I have not found it makes any difference. I have not tried exposure to actual sun light and hope to see if there is an improvement in that regard. Some comments indicate it improves germination rate. i am more interested in germination speed an uniformity. that means I want them up and growing fast and all looking the same size. I want my sprouts to look like a room full of clones so to speak. The reasons for this are beyond this scope of this post, I will just say that such conditions are indicators of good things.

I allow up to 5 days for the seed to germinate. further seed will germinate after this time but I do not use them for growing plants.

as soon as seed shows any sign it has germinated it is time for a change in conditions.
I transplant the germinated seed to 3 oz cups. I use a pair of very fine pointed tweezers and a very steady hand. I do not pick up the sprout itself. i pick up a small clump of soil that holds the sprouts root to do this. many may not have the means to transplant at this point. there are alternative methods that I will not describe in this post.
The cups are filed with sifted potting soil. I only use potting soil for this stage.
I also want the moisture to be damp not wet. I found sprouts will stop growing if kept to wet or to dry. you may not notice they have stopped for a couple of days because growth at this point is already very slow. a couple of days here and there can make a huge difference after just 6 weeks. It can mean the difference in having a plant that is only 4 inches tall or one that is 9 inches tall or more. Most of the growth from seed to 6 weeks happens in the 5th and 6th week. everything that is done now is preparing the sprout to grow as much as possible in those two weeks. I also uncover them to expose them to fresh air. oxygen has also become important.
Light becomes a primary factor as well. Most people do not realize how much light is enough for sprouts. In my case I use 4 foot 2 bulb florescent shop lights as my light source. these lights are placed no more than 3 inches away from the sprouts. Read that again. 3 inches. you cannot even reach your hand in between the light and the plants. those lights are right down on top of them. Remember we are trying to recreate the power of the sun here. we are not talking light you can read by. we need light that you can grow by.

When I turn on every light in my starter rack. I can read by the light from over 30 feet away. We are talking about a lot of light.

To know I have enough light I watch the development of the sprout. I want it to emerge from the soil. spread out the first two false leaves with no more than a quarter of an inch of stem above the soil. I want the plant to start growing leaves immediately. looking like a small cluster of leaves setting very close to the soil surface. No stalk of any kind at this point.

If the plant stretches at all it means it does not have enough light and is searching for it. not enough light means it is not growing to it's fullest potential. (some varieties are an exception from what I can tell)

I start feeding the sprouts half strength miracle grow for tomatoes plant food from the time the 4th true leaf emerges.

At 4 weeks from sowing the seed my sprouts should have developed into starts with no less than 4 true leaves that are at least 1 inch long. they have now outgrown the 3 oz cups.

I transplant the starts to 6 inch pots that are filled with a soil as close to the garden soil they will grow in as possible. in my case a tray full of 6 inch pots filled with garden soil is simply to heavy. So I use a mixture of garden soil and potting soil or potting mix to fill the pots. These trays will have to be moved during the hardening off process so weight is something you need to pay attention to. The starts will also grow from having 1 inch long leaves or so to 8 to 9 inch leaves in the next two weeks.

At the end of the 5th week I start moving the starts outdoors each day for exposure to full direct sunlight. I expose them for 1 hour on the first day. i then evaluate how they reacted to decide how long they will be exposed the following day. if they did well i will double the time on day two. if they show signs of wilting or burning I will give them just one hour the following day.
Agian on day three if all is well I double the time again to 4 hours. In actual practice it is witht he 4 hour exposure that I expect to see the first trouble. so watch them closely and bring them in if they show signs they are being harmed. sometimes they are only able to go three hours or so this first day. On day for I will give them a 4 hour exposure again. Usually I find they do fine on the second day with a full 4 hours. On day 5 I try to get as close to an 8 hour exposure as I can but most likely they will only tolerate about 6 or so. On day 6 they get 8 full hours or more, on day 7 they are left out from sun up to sun down but watched closely for drying out . wilting or any sign they will burn. I have never had a problem with my plants on day 7 and they have actually started acting like they prefer the full sun. they have thicker leaves already and have turned a darker green. They have put on what I like to think of as there tan. They simply look to me like a tougher plant. The following day they will be planted to the garden. Which in my case is 5 gallon buckets but that is the subject of another post.

Good luck to all of you and remember. maximum harvest starts when you drop that seed on wet soil. That seed carries full potential. it is our job to harm it as little as possible throughout the growing season. We make small mistakes along the way. less than ideal conditions even for a moment here and a moment here do nothing but reduce the potential of that seed. minimizing the mistakes is the real goal. the seed will then do the rest.
 

deluxestogie

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Daniel,
You have probably spent more time repeatedly observing the germination stage and the first few weeks than anyone I know of. This is excellent experiential data. Although most of us can achieve adequate results with less stringent conditions, your observations represent a set of well documented conditions. Since these results are influenced by variety, it would be good to know which ones you worked with.

Many will object to your 90ºF germination temp, even though it approximates tropical conditions. Do you have any comparison data for germination at any lower temps?

With regard to illumination of the seeds, I suspect that it is dependent on both the variety and the age of the seed. I believe that clarifying this issue would require seed of several documented ages from each of a large number of representative varieties. Too many variables.

My own approach, which is not ideal, has been to compensate for spotty germination and haphazard early growth with large numbers from which to choose. This falls under the rubric of, "Seeds are cheap; time is not." Despite overseeding and surplus starts, of my 16 varieties this season, 5 of them did not produce as many viable transplants as I had desired. Others were successful in spectacular abundance. So, the subject of your post will be one of my priorities for next spring.

When you get some extra time, a simple timeline of your narrative would be useful.

Thanks again for the details.

Bob
 

Daniel

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Bob, I will have to gather up the list of varieties that I used over the 4 separate attempts. For now I wll add that the 4 varieties I finally grew for the season are.
Monte Calm Yellow, Yellow Twist Bud, Virgina Bright Leaf and Bursa.

I did notice that some varieties grew at a faster rate than others so yes much seems to be variety dependent and I hope to develop specific techniques in the future.

My main goal is to develop methods of growing in very little space with the use of 5 gal buckets. So far results are at the higher end of my hopes. Much larger leaves than I thought I would get in some cases. Taste so far has been weak but the majority of my harvest is nto ready to be smoked yet so the taste tests are mud lugs only.

The first batch of seed I germinated at lower temps and they took as much as 7 days for a good result that I could start transplanting from. upping the temp got the seed to germinate in 4 day average and I was able to transplant on the 5th day. this was for the remaining 3 attempts. the one may have been a fluke so I will not ay it is definite that the temperature made the difference. I have heard that exposure to direct sun light will get similar results and higher germination rates as well.

I don't stand by the claim that anything is in fact better or worse. just reporting the results I have had. Far to many variables to know exactly why the results are what they where. I do know that by the time I was starting seed for the 4th time I felt I would be hard pressed to improve the results I am getting. As progress is made each advancement becomes harder to achieve. I do believe that the techniques above, altered as necessary for any individuals specific needs, would result in satisfactory results for the average home grower.

I also start about twice as many seeds as i intend to grow. mainly for the purpose of selecting the most hardy. I did learn that a hardy plant at germination dos not mean a hardy plant at 6 weeks or even at 12 weeks. I had several plants that did not start showing there best qualities until they where quite large. they ended up being some of my best. What I did realize is that clearly do not give up. tobacco can and will recover from even a very poor condition. My plants froze and looked dead. Some have grown very well since then. some did not. The sort of results that I may never gain any conclusions about. In the end i think I would have been better off replacing my entire crop in the first 4 weeks even though some plants did do very well. All replacement plants are doing well.

I will see what I can put together in the way of a time line. In general my actual crop is 17 weeks so far from seeding to today. much of it has been harvested and that is very much different form variety to variety. MCY was first. YTB and VBL seem to be running neck and neck and both are about half harvested. The Bursa still looks like it has no intention of ever coming in.

questions and comments or even comparison results are more than welcome. I do need to ask you patience in my response as i am fairly busy right now. I can only check forums int he morning before go to work and time is limited even then.
 

Daniel

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Here is just one set of numbers on the difference I may have seen that temperature MAY have made. I say may becasue there are many other factors that may also have caused the difference. My fist batch of seed germinated at approx room temps (70 to 75 degrees for January indoor temps). took between 5 and 8 days to germinate. The second batch germinated at 80 to 85 degrees germinated in 3 to 5 days with a few stragglers. IN one test later on I did get the temp up to 85 to 90 degrees and a significant larger number of seeds germinated in less than 5 days. It also appeared to me that the sprouts develop faster at the higher temps as well.
As I said temperature may only be a part of the difference. it may very well not be making the difference at all. It could be that I was also improving moisture control and other conditions with practice. So the plants simply thrived better due to overall better care.
 

SmokesAhoy

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yeah i had fast germination with just about everything from the grin at 60 degrees (vt room temp lol). my biggest difference came from the second stage when the roots werent crowded and had room to go deep. i saved 2qt jugs from half n half waxed cardboard containers for next year. i expect good things from those. although i'm not sure initial transplant size made any difference come harvest, they all seemed to have caught up to each other with genetics making the size difference.
 

BaccaChew

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I also start about twice as many seeds as i intend to grow. mainly for the purpose of selecting the most hardy.

I started a truck load of seeds, figuring I would have transplants to share with others in my area. 50 cells at 4 or 5 seeds per cell. Many came up, but after damping off ran through it all, I had 12 somewhat reisistant survivors. This could have been an important event.

Perhaps I will re-use the same dirty cell-tray next year for the same number of new, progeny seeds and see if there truley is a resistance that has been selected for.
 

Chicken

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i agree with '' THE FINER THE SOIL THE BETTER''

thats why my '09 crop never came up,,, i used too course of a soil,,,,this year in fine soil,, nothing but sucess,,,

i transplanted mine to 4'' inch pots when they showed thier roots out of the 72 cell seed starting tray i used,,,

heres them in thier pots glorifiying in the florida sun,, i started them in january,,,

...
 

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BigBonner

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If you use the same trays next year sanitize them with bleach . 1 Cup of bleach to about two gallons of water . wash them in a tub then rinse well with plain water .
 

Chicken

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If you use the same trays next year sanitize them with bleach . 1 Cup of bleach to about two gallons of water . wash them in a tub then rinse well with plain water .

good idea,,,, because something killed my burley and it wasnt me,,,

maybe bad reused soil??????

everything next year will be bag fresh,,and the trays thouroghly sanitized,,
 

Daniel

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There is a lot more to add about just what it took to get it. But I wanted to note that this season resulted in producing 16 lbs of finished cigarette tobacco in a space about 220 square feet. I made a lot of mistakes once the tobacco got planted out and I think the harvest could have been better for many reasons. I still consider that much tobacco in that small a space is impressive. The praise goes to the plant not me. It is tough, it wants to grow. and it does not have to have a ton of room to go it. crowding like that probably has more problems for me than it does the tobacco. It's hard to get to stuff to keep suckers off etc. But it does work. I would not try it with plants that cannot be moved.
 

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I started with a 2'x 3'x 4" box filled with fertilome {extremely fine and moisture holding qualitys} and miricle grow starter mix about half and half, I broadcast enough seeds to insure I would have plenty. They came up so good it was like a green carpet across the whole surface. When they had about three leaves I would dip out a spoonfull and place in a bowl of water to separate the roots without tearing them and transplant into 72 cell trays and any 6 or 9 cell trays I save from veggie seedlings. I only transplanted about 500 out of about 5000 or maybe 10,000. It was extremely time consuming and will try to find a more easy and efficint way next year. I germinated inside starting in mid february at normal room temperature with a piece of white freezer paper over top to help maintain moisture after misting on daily basis until a good percentage germinated and the left uncovered and moist till temps rose above freezing before moving to front porch with morning sun and mostly sheltered conditions.
 

Daniel

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I wanted to add to this thread that the Monte Calm Yellow that I stalked harvested as well as the Yellow Twist Bud that was stalk harvested Both came out a very pleasant cigarette tobacco all on their own. I will be playing around with mixes over the next few days. MCY is a bit slower in curing but the YTB cured shredded and stored in baggies in about 90 to 120 days.
Two good varieties for me if they are harvested in the correct manner. No priming unless you want to have some ultra light tobacco to blend in.
 

Chicken

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did you learn anything concerning pests,?

in my area apparantlly '' HORNWORMS''. are rampant,

i learned that you got to be ready,,,and waiting for them,,,,and at first sight of a infestation beginning,,,

you must act fast and quick, or them worms will destroy your crop over night,

next year i dont know which one i will have more enjoyment at '' growing my baccy/ or killing hornworms,''
after what they did to my crop this year,,,,'' it's personal now<''

i will show no mercy to the dreaded hornworm,,, i have my b.t. standing by allready<--------
 

Daniel

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We had more problems with aphids than horn worms this year. From what I have been told it takes a year for the horn worms to figure out where the food sources are around here. Due to our climate even bad insect populations are small. I did see the Sphinx moths a couple of times so they where trying. I will be ready for it to be a whole different story this next spring.
 
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