Dreamsoul 2015 Grow Blog 1st Try

[Dreamsoul]

So this year I will try to grow tobacco for the first time

First of all , I want to thank to every member that share their knowledge and experiences here , that help me a lot with some doubts.

The variety I'm used to smoke and satisfied me is Virginia bright K237 , so that its the seeds i get from my leaf supplier .

As I said before , I want to keep it as simple as I can , and cheap as i can. The principal reason is i don't have time.

For start the seed's i use plastic cups (50 cl) ,the reason is not waste time changing to bigger cups , so the will start there and will stays there until its time to go to ground. I get the idea from one member here, that use what look like starbucks cups , sorry i forget your nick , I remember that you have a mini bowling track near to your set up.

For the trays I use Styrofoam trays that i found near the supermarket , they use this trays to transport fish, yeah I know and the smell , well i wash them , and get them to the sun and the smell disappear.

For the seed soil mix I bought a big bag in the garden center.

I have put 2 seeds in every cup to get more chances to get at least one to sprout . I have 80 cups.

So far i spend 15 euros.

The cups are stored in a greenhouse where i used to grow orchids , as most of you know they ate very fragile and don't like cold.

The temperatures here in Portugal in march will more or less around 20º celsius degree (68º fahrenheit) in the day, and 10º celsius degree (50º fahrenheit) in the night.

I will add photos soon.

 

[tryals15]

Welcome! And good luck!

 

[bonehead]

welcome to the forum. good luck on your grow.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Welcome, If you are buying Virginia Bright K237 leaf and like it enough that you have also bought the seeds you will need to flue cure your tobacco or sun cure it. If you do not, your tobacco will taste nothing at all like the leaf you are buying.

 

[Dreamsoul]

Welcome, If you are buying Virginia Bright K237 leaf and like it enough that you have also bought the seeds you will need to flue cure your tobacco or sun cure it. If you do not, your tobacco will taste nothing at all like the leaf you are buying.

Hi Jitterbubugdude

My first plan its using the greenhouse to curing , and I asked before if could do it that way . knuck and Dgama said more less the same as you

The greenhouse should do fine for starting seeds, and for curing as long as you can keep the humidity around an average of 70RH. Flue cure varieties can be flue cured, air cured, or sun cured. The sweetness of sun cured flue cure varieties will fall somewhere between that of flue cured and air cured. I have good success sun curing mine.

As Knucks said, sun curing is fairly easy. String leaves and hang in greenhouse until mostly yellow, then move to full sun to dry/finish.

So probably it will be the way to curing the leafs.
But i have a doubt , the way to sun curing is hanging the leafs to direct sun right ? This will not make the leaf crisp ?

 

[Brown Thumb]

Good luck, The cups work good unfortunately they were falling over in the trays I was using when moving them around.

 

[indianjoe]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[POGreen]

Welcome to us here at FTT and good luck with your grow !

 

[darren1979]

good luck with your grow. If you can grow orchids tobacco will be a walk in the park.

 

[Knucklehead]

So probably it will be the way to curing the leafs. But i have a doubt , the way to sun curing is hanging the leafs to direct sun right ? This will not make the leaf crisp ?

I hang my leaf in the shop until mostly yellow, then move to full sun. If the leaf is mostly yellow when you harvest it, hang it inside or in the shade until the leaf is wilted, then move to full sun. Hang them very close together in the sun so they share moisture from each other, rather than the moisture just evaporating.

The leaf will be crispy dry by the time it is fully cured and the stem dry. Wait until night when the leaf relaxes to take it down, or mist it with some water.

 

[Dreamsoul]

I hang my leaf in the shop until mostly yellow, then move to full sun. If the leaf is mostly yellow when you harvest it, hang it inside or in the shade until the leaf is wilted, then move to full sun. Hang them very close together in the sun so they share moisture from each other, rather than the moisture just evaporating.

The leaf will be crispy dry by the time it is fully cured and the stem dry. Wait until night when the leaf relaxes to take it down, or mist it with some water.

Thank you Knuck for the explication , do you have some photo from your set up to hang the leafs to direct sun ?

 

[Knucklehead]

I think the photos of sun curing start here in my 2014 Grow Blog: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3899-2014-Knucklehead-Grow-Blog?p=84826&viewfull=1#post84826

I grew a few plants of many different varieties. Therefore, primings of each variety were very small. You could string your leaves on wire, tie them to sticks, etc. Whatever works best for you. I used modified coat hangers with a safety pin type catch twisted into the wire.

Here is another picture from 2013. I was using the modified coat hangers back then also.

 

[Knucklehead]

This is a picture of some of my flue cure varieties that were sun cured:

 

[Dreamsoul]

Here is the first pictures

And some of my orchids

 

[Dreamsoul]

The coat hangers was a very good idea and practical. Do you leave the leafs day and night until they are dry ? This take more or less how many days ?

 

[Knucklehead]

The coat hangers was a very good idea and practical. Do you leave the leafs day and night until they are dry ? This take more or less how many days ?

I grew 3-4 plants of around 75 different varieties. Only 3-4 plants per variety meant I only had a few leaves each time I primed of each variety. The coat hangers worked for me because I wasn't priming from several plants of the same variety. It was useful to keep the many varieties separate from each other. If I had 25-50 plants of each variety, I would prime a lot more leaf at each priming and the coat hangers would be impractical. In that case, I would probably string all those leaves to a stick and skip the coat hangers.

I leave them outside day and night unless it storms. High winds or rain I bring them inside. After going past yellow and losing their inner moisture they get dry during the day and moist at night. When finished curing I bring them inside at night while they are limp from the humidity and I can handle them without shattering the leaf.

I don't count the days, I watch the leaf color and how dry the stems get.

 

[Dreamsoul]

So normally the people say , no news its good news , here was not the case .

None of the seeds sprout , we have a phrase here its says more or less this "when the charity is much, the poor suspects" , the seeds was given by my leaf supplier , so probably its was expected this could not run well.

But one of my problems is that I'm a bit stubborn , so i will try again , this time i buy for 5€ 300 virginia gold seeds from a seed store .

The setup its the same , now the weather here is more warm , but maybe it could be a little late to start now , but whatever, we will see in what will end.

When they sprout (i hope) I will post new photos.

 

[DGBAMA]

I would start with 4-5 seeds per cup. And remember they are "surface sown" if buried, they will normally not sprout.

Best luck with the second try.

 

[ProfessorPangloss]

Also, if you can keep the temperature above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, you'll have better luck with germination.

 

[Dreamsoul]

It was more or less what i do this time DGBAMA , well the seeds are very small , so i try to put more or less 5 seeds per cup.

Today I saw the the temperature inside the greenhouse at five afternoon and it marks 38º celsius degrees (100º Fahrenheit ) and 40% humidity .