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DonH 2015 Grow Blog

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DonH

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Long time no post! Adding hog raising to tobacco growing has made for a busy summer! I'll update on my grow in a minute, but first, I got to go to England for my job. FTT represent!

IMG_1116sm.jpg
 

Knucklehead

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I wonder if that FTT hat has accumulated the most mileage. Contest anyone?

Nice photo. Tell us about your trip when you get back.
 

DonH

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This grow's been a mixed bag. Some good, some bad. About a good third of the plants were kind of stunted. The problem was I got the compost and loam spread with very little time to get the plants in the ground before I had to go on a trip. The spreading was done a bit unevenly, and I really should have tilled it after to loosen up the existing soil. But it was already a week later than I wanted to get them in the ground, so I went ahead and planted. So about one third are OK, one third are too small and the other third is in between. Since I planted twice as much as last year I should still get a fair amount, but I wanted to stockpile. Another mistake I made is that after I planted, I didn't test the soil for a few weeks, because I couldn't locate my soil tester. I ended up getting another one, and the soil, since I bought it, was too high in pH. So I had to get some fast acting acidifier and also some blood meal which not only increases nitrogen, but also increases acidity once the bacteria go to work on it. I also added some bone meal. Expensive for a big plot, but it paid off in much better growth. But if I had got that right from the get go things would be better.

All the Turkish are doing real well, though. And I should get seed for the growout and from my GRIN varieties. Another plus is I had NO HORNWORMS! But... for two weeks I had a real Japanese beetle problem. I was real worried about that and then they just died down, but they did cause some damage. I hate those things. And then lately I've had a real bad aphid problem on many of the plants.

I've also decided to try sun curing. I'm just stringing the leaves on the wires I usually use to hang them, then hang the wires on the hog panel fence surrounding the plot. It seems to work really well in this climate. The suns not too intense up here and the humidity seems about right. The only problem is bringing them inside each time it rains. But I just tested a tip of a Del Gold lug leaf that was sun cured and for zero aging it tasted excellent.

Because my plants were slow to get started it's almost like I planted a month late. I'll get some pics up later.
 

DonH

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Here's a pic of the Prilep. An amazing looking plant. It is much later to mature and flower than all the other Turkish types I grew.

IMG_1142sm.jpg
 

DGBAMA

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I had a good grow of Prilep too this year. Which variety is yours? Looks like mine, short and bushy, but my Prilep was actually the first variety to bloom.
 

DonH

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I had a good grow of Prilep too this year. Which variety is yours? Looks like mine, short and bushy, but my Prilep was actually the first variety to bloom.
I don't know, DG. I'll have to do some digging. I didn't know there were different Prilep varieties.
 

Knucklehead

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I don't know, DG. I'll have to do some digging. I didn't know there were different Prilep varieties.

I have five. I grew the Prilep P66-9/7 last year. Awesome plant.
Prilep 79-94
Prilep P66-9/7
Prilep "2" TI 1291225977
Prilep TI 1325405612
Prilep Orient
 

DGBAMA

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I have five. I grew the Prilep P66-9/7 last year. Awesome plant.
Prilep 79-94
Prilep P66-9/7
Prilep "2" TI 1291225977
Prilep TI 1325405612
Prilep Orient

Knucks, I till need to get you the refresh seed for those from last year. I grew the first 4 on the list. The 1325 does not look like a Prilep, and may be mis-classified.
 

DonH

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I have five. I grew the Prilep P66-9/7 last year. Awesome plant.
Prilep 79-94
Prilep P66-9/7
Prilep "2" TI 1291225977
Prilep TI 1325405612
Prilep Orient
I'm going to have to do some research to find out where I got the seeds from.
 

DonH

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Wow, long time no update! Work's been crazy busy since August. Got a good harvest because I grew lots of plants but there was significant loss. I experimented with sun curing, but my grow was a little late and the cold nights in late August/September made for too much humidity (they basically got drenched with dew) and I got some mold, especially on the tips of the leaves. On those I cured indoors, I did have some drying green problems, because I was traveling too much to pile color cure or work the humidifier. My soil had a lot of nitrogen, so the leaves were really green. My TN90 Burley even had trouble color curing. But the leaves are really thick and I'm kilning the ones that are brown on the front but green on the back thinking the kiln will get the rest of the green out. But given the problems the end quantity is pretty good. I'm in the middle of running the kiln, and am using Amax's method. I highly recommend it, especially if your kiln is indoors, because there is no water leaking problem and you can leave it for a few days because you never add water to the crockpot. I experimented with a little lower temperature (closer to 119-122) and less humidity to see if it would cure the flue cure types lighter, but they still came out as dark as last year. The odd thing is, the lightest leaf I had after color curing was Bright Yellow and that cured the darkest. My biggest success was stalk curing Turkish. Thanks to whoever suggested that. They color cured very well (except for the Perustitza) and it REALLY reduced the labor.
 

DonH

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Wow, long time no update! Work's been crazy busy since August. Got a good harvest because I grew lots of plants but there was significant loss. I experimented with sun curing, but my grow was a little late and the cold nights in late August/September made for too much humidity (they basically got drenched with dew) and I got some mold, especially on the tips of the leaves. On those I cured indoors, I did have some drying green problems, because I was traveling too much to pile color cure or work the humidifier. My soil had a lot of nitrogen, so the leaves were really green. My TN90 Burley even had trouble color curing. But the leaves are really thick and I'm kilning the ones that are brown on the front but green on the back thinking the kiln will get the rest of the green out. But given the problems the end quantity is pretty good. I'm in the middle of running the kiln, and am using Amax's method. I highly recommend it, especially if your kiln is indoors, because there is no water leaking problem and you can leave it for a few days because you never add water to the crockpot. I experimented with a little lower temperature (closer to 119-122) and less humidity to see if it would cure the flue cure types lighter, but they still came out as dark as last year. The odd thing is, the lightest leaf I had after color curing was Bright Yellow and that cured the darkest. My biggest success was stalk curing Turkish. Thanks to whoever suggested that. They color cured very well (except for the Perustitza) and it REALLY reduced the labor.
 

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I stalk cured my orientals this year too. I asked about it, and I think JBD said he had done so, so I went for it. Colored nicely and Big labor saver compared to hand stringing each tiny leaf.

On the bright sun curing...... Yes you can get good flue cure type color initially, but my understanding is the leaf still goes brown with age, ie kilning. The late stage of flue curing is what makes FC types keep their bright color long term. The enzymes responsible for most of natural aging / browning are neutralized at 145-155 degrees, late in the flute cure process. I would venture to guess that nice color achieved by sun curing could be "fixed" minimizing darkening with age, by bringing the color cured leaves to 150 degrees for a few hours to neutralize these browning enzymes, before kilning/aging.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I stalk cured my orientals this year too. I asked about it, and I think JBD said he had done so, so I went for it. Colored nicely and Big labor saver compared to hand stringing each tiny leaf.

On the bright sun curing...... Yes you can get good flue cure type color initially, but my understanding is the leaf still goes brown with age, ie kilning. The late stage of flue curing is what makes FC types keep their bright color long term. The enzymes responsible for most of natural aging / browning are neutralized at 145-155 degrees, late in the flute cure process. I would venture to guess that nice color achieved by sun curing could be "fixed" minimizing darkening with age, by bringing the color cured leaves to 150 degrees for a few hours to neutralize these browning enzymes, before kilning/aging.

I think you're right. It only makes sense.
 

DonH

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I'm going to have to do some research to find out where I got the seeds from.
Finally figured out where I got the Prilep seeds from: NWT seeds (Sky). I'm guessing it's p66-9/7 since that's what Sustainable Seeds is offering this year and I think they get their seeds from Northwest Seeds.
 
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