Interesting growing year so far!

[Jack in NB]

The NB11 is a head above the others, with the MCB and Matty/Lakota's Gold Burley a shade smaller.
Bob's "Poq...." is up there too, with unusual crinkly leaves.

It is interesting that the Gold Burley and MCB both resemble the NB11's physical characteristics, on a smaller size scale. I haven't yet compared the MCB and NB11 for taste.

The plants are coming into flower now - usual timing for this location.

But... and a BIG but - the tallest plant is only a bit over 4 ft high. Usually by this time they're pushing 5 1/2 to 6 ft.

Have 4 gaps in my 72 plant patch - I neglected to put the second cutworm bait treatment in place about 2 weeks after planting out.

 

[Matty]

Jack, the seeds I sent actually came right from Lakota, I didn't bag any flowers last year. I'm doing a lot better with my plants this year. Here's my golden burley, started to flower over 1 week ago.

 

[Jack in NB]

Impressive leaves, Matty.

I'd say they're a bit bigger than mine at this point!

 

[Matty]

Lol, yeah. That plant is only 4 foot high or so. I used blood meal, bone meal, some sorta seaweed extract, black pond muck and vintage 50+ year old cow manure. I got a lot of stalks near 1 1/2" in diameter and most of the leaves in that garden are big like in the picture. I don't know how I'll cure some of it, midribs bigger than celery. I think all that fertilizing stuff is working lol.

 

[Lakota]

Nice looking plants Matty, with our short curing season I have had to remove some of the mid ribs and then kiln the leaves to get it to cure. I have never got the stems to dry completely. I usually shred and then kiln the shredded tobacco 4 to 6 weeks using Dr.Bobs crockpot method. I have a couple of cheap temp controllers I got from china and they are still working after 3 years of use. One actually runs the fans in my greenhouse.

 

[Matty]

The midrib is indeed quite big. I picked the dead leaves and yellow leaves from the bottom of all the plants. The dead leaves had cured in the field and dried crispy dry but most of the midrib stayed juicy and white. That was last week, they've been hanging since and still have not dried. I might try shaving off some midrib from the back of the leaf to reduce some of the wet plant material.