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Are these growing correctly?

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Smokin Buffalo

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Hey guys,
I planted these on June 11. My Florida Sumatra is at about 2 feet for the best plants and some 1 foot. Seeing it gets to 6-8' tall, I would think it should be taller by now. Some of my Vuelta Abajo I have had to top and one was a small plant. My question is if I need more fertilizer or water or what I can do. I planted in straw bales but from what I've read, this shouldn't affect the plants.
Here are some pictures to show what I mean.

Floida Sumatra
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Vuelta Abajo small plant I had to top.
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Largest Vuelta Abajo
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All Vuelta Abajo
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Little Dutch looks ok
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Cuban Criollo
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Any ideas of what I can do to help this crop would be appreciated. I just don't know what to do.
 

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Alpine

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Cannot offer much help, but i would try to transplant alt least one of each strain in full ground to make a comparison... It is my belief that straw bales act much like plastic containers. If so, your plants will never reach their full potential. If i'm wrong, the transplanted ones will go on like the others.
Pier
 

deluxestogie

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My impression of straw bale growing (for tobacco or potatoes or anything else) is that it is similar to hydroponic growing, in that the burden is on the grower to supply everything that the plant requires to grow well. This includes appropriate water availability and major NPK nutrients, as well as trace elements that are usually assumed to be in soil, but are unlikely to be in the straw.

Your grow is an interesting experiment. It may be that what the tobacco plants need is simply an additional row of new straw bales to either side of the rows you have. Edge effects along the margins of the bale rows allow rapid dehydration along those edges, and probably limit the root zone. Another approach would be to move every other row of straw bales to a position directly touching an adjacent row--pairs of rows, and stagger them so that the plants are staggered in the double-row arrangement. This would immediately eliminate 50% of the edge effect.

Aside from rearrangement (which is pretty late into the season), you might try to find a fertilizer that is low in chlorine, that can be attached to your garden hose for watering.

It's difficult to tell from the photos how many hours of direct sunlight they get in their location. That might also be an issue.

Bob
 

Smokin Buffalo

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I originally went with Straw because I have clay soil that holds water and when wet would drown the plants. However, it has been an extremely dry year. We are in a draught so I may be able to plant in the ground.
I have the Florida Sumatra in shade. They only get 5 or 6 hours of direct light and that is late in the day. The Vuelta Abajo gets mostly sun. And the other two get full sun.
Do any of you know of q good liquid fertilizer? The Miracle Grow liquid that attaches to a hose has the first ingredient as urea. I want the per portions to be 1-2-.5. Correct?
 

SmokesAhoy

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I have a high clay soil as well. What I do is in my (admittedly small) patch is chop down all organic matter and place it all over the patch after the season, excluding the tobacco stalks.

Then when I'm ready to transplant I dig deep holes and fill them with the leaf litter/top layer of soil from the forest to form a mound, this stuff drains very well (it seems too well sometimes at the beginning of the season) but once the plants stretch out their roots they are on auto pilot for the rest of the year.

The plants will grow fine in the clay soil, but unamended they will resemble what you have going in the straw.

I'd say do your thing this year and get some seed and a bit of leaf, then next year take that well rotted straw and mix it with soil you dig out of 5 gallon size holes. Mix as much bark, straw, leaves sand etc in a wheelbarrow with the soil and fill it back in to your holes. Basically container planting I guess but with our clay soil you don't have to ever worry about the containers needing to be watered.
 

Smokin Harley

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The soil in my locallity is typically a sticky clayey loam and the water naturally is limey. It tills up nice and is very fertile. It is almost black once turned. When it rains it gets gummy.When it gets hot and dry the ground gets hard and cracks... for the past 3 years I have added soil amendments in the form of peat ,sand ,gypsum , mushroom compost and composted cow manure. I also did NOT till the garden under last year as per my normal fall procedure. I waitied patiently this spring to dry out and I burned the garden cover before tilling. This gave the garden a good fresh shot of potash and burned off a few of the weeds I was fighting too. My garden this year didn't have nearly the amount of purslane it had previous years. I will most likely re-create this again this fall and next spring. I will add more of the same amendments next year. The drainage seemed to be better and the soil remained loose . I also experimented with straw bales . The potatoes didn't do nearly as well as i had read they should have. They got regular feedings and water was not a problem.
At the end of the day I think planting in the real dirt is best.
 

Knucklehead

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Turn the bales sideways and scrunch them back together. Water when you notice drooping. Granular fertilizer could work since you are watering frequently.

How often are you watering now and have you fertilized at all?
 

Cigar

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Smoking Buffalo please keep us updated how your growing in straw bales turns out..I too have been very,very interested in growing that way mainly because here in my local area have shallow topsoil on top of limestone!!..heck in most parts of my lot only few inches of topsoil at best..so over years of growing stuff I always have to grow up..not down..that means either pots or very costly raised-beds so the idea of starting off using "straw beds" and over time after it used few seasons.. and adding other stuff like compost..manure etc sounds like what love to try..but from read like deluxestosige stated...you would have to "baby-it with fertiizlers" and other stuff alot more than regular dirt. hope all turns out good.

Cigar
 

SmokesAhoy

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Mmm purslane. Try it raw, with a mayonnaise dressing. Great summer green:)
 

Smokin Harley

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hah, I would gladly let you have all the purslane I have . I tried it years ago . A guy I worked with of Mexican descent, made goat meat and purslane tacos... I didn't care for it at all.
 

Smokin Buffalo

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Turn the bales sideways and scrunch them back together. Water when you notice drooping. Granular fertilizer could work since you are watering frequently.

How often are you watering now and have you fertilized at all?

I water every other day because we have had very hot and dry weather. I had a miracle grow soil on top of regular topsoil. I figured that was all I needed for fertilizer. As of yesterday, I applied Neptune's Tomatoe and Veg liquid fertilizer. It's made from a cold processes of fish and kelp.
I plan on applying once a week. If pellets are better, I'd have to buy them.
 

Knucklehead

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I water every other day because we have had very hot and dry weather. I had a miracle grow soil on top of regular topsoil. I figured that was all I needed for fertilizer. As of yesterday, I applied Neptune's Tomatoe and Veg liquid fertilizer. It's made from a cold processes of fish and kelp.
I plan on applying once a week. If pellets are better, I'd have to buy them.

Your liquid fertilizer will be fine. Usually the fertilizer in the fortified soil will be gone in a couple of weeks, or sooner with frequent watering. I think BigBonner begins fertilizing his seedlings two weeks after they germinate in the float trays.
 

Chicken

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At this time of the year id lean heavy on the potash and be done with the nitrogen..perhaps one môre fertilizing and then pick when u think they are ready..i dont grow cigar bacca so i cant help u there.

But i just gave mine thier last fertilizing..i gave them a mix of boron..sulfate of potash..all trace elements..and a little magnesium.
 

Smokin Buffalo

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Now that the grow is done I can report that after I started treating the straw bails like hydroponics, they started to grow much better. Miracle Grow soil was not enough nutrition for the plants. I started adding a liquid fertilizer once a week and watering every other day (we were in a fraught), and that when they started to grow. They aged out (started turning yellow) before they reached full size. Either that or the straw bails wouldn't let them grow to their full potential. My Florida Sumatra's longest leaf was probably 13". Very disappointing! Little Dutch seemed to be ok. Although the shape of the plant
may lend itself to this type of grow. Vuelta Abajo all had severely stunted growth. Cuban Criollo seemed to not be too bad but still ended up with small leaves as well.
 
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