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DubHelix's 2017 Grow

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dubhelix

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Harvest continues, leaves ripening in 3-4 day intervals, which is great, since that's how long it takes for the previous set to wilt and yellow in the attic.
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After harvesting by cutting each leaf with my trusty puukko, the leaves are submerged in a container of water, and individually cleaned to remove sand and aphids.
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The leaves are then laid out in the attic under a fan to remove excess water from the leaf surface
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Then piled on a towel and covered with another towel in the attic, which is about 80F at night and 120F during the heat of the day. The leaves are rotated/restacked every 12 hours, morning and night. They yellow nicely with this regimen.
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Once they are 90% yellowed, the leaves get a wire S-hook through the stem.
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And are then hung on a wire in the curing shed. The shed has a 4 inch gap under the roofline for ventilation, and a dirt floor that gets sprayed with a hose in dry weather.
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Alpine

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Sorry DubH but the leaves in the last picture doesn't look yellow at all... maybe it's just the picture but I had bad experiences with pile curing a couple years ago... just my two cents

pier
 

Charly

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Great harvest :)
The leaves look good, but I wonder if they are really mature enough, as said Pier : on the last picture the leaves on the left side seem very "green" and already quite dry...
Maybe you should try to wait a little bit more to see if the leaves show more signs of ripeness ? or you should watch if they are not drying too fast (to avoid green drying).

I have never harvest any dark air leaf so maybe I am wrong ? You could try with a few leaves, to let them become more ripe ?
 

dubhelix

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It's true, the leaves on the left side of the last photo were not yellowed in the attic, they were sand lugs that I just hung straight after harvest. They're browning satisfactorily, but the pile-yellowed leaves work better.
 

deluxestogie

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I can attest to the difficulty of capturing the yellows and greens and browns of curing tobacco in a photo. Especially with a flash. The color in full sunlight is usually true.

[Are those Welsh Harlequin ducks?]

Bob
 

dubhelix

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The Ducks were ~supposed~ to be Rouens, but I think they're just mallards. They are no help at all with regards to the tobacco harvest.
 

dubhelix

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While the Air Curing process is going well, I've come to realize that I should have planned better regarding the wires. Pretty soon I won't be able to reach the rear leaves/first harvest. Hmm.
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deluxestogie

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I purchase 1/4 mile spools (as needed) of 17 gauge Aluminum electric fence wire at Tractor Supply. I use it to string my primed leaf, typically 40 to 60 leaves per wire. I space the leaves 1/2 to 1" apart, back to back/front to front.

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The benefit is ease of handling. I can move the entire string easily. I carry the string of color-cured leaf into my kiln, and hang it in the kiln as is--still with its tag. After kilning, I use packing tape to attach that tag to the outside of the storage bag.

When stringing the leaf, the square-cut end of the wire is rocked slightly against the stem, then punctures it easily.

Bob
 

dubhelix

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That looks like a good stringing method. I ran out to the shed, and flipped every other hanging leaf on the wires, which was easy since each leaf gas its own S-Hook. Then I pushed the leaves much closer together, so that the S-Hooks/stem butts are about 1" apart. I was worried about mold, but after watching the video of your curing shed in your 2015 grow blog...I'm not too worried anymore.

I think I'll try your electric-fence-wire method, or rather, my bastardized version of it, involving shorter sections (18") of the heavy wire strung with leaves, each hanging cross-wise on the "master wires" (like your braided nylon rope) that run the whole length of my shed.

Thanks again.
 

dubhelix

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The first priming of the Volado is pretty much color cured after two weeks in the barn (pictured below), but the thicker, more robust leaves from the Viso and Seco printings are taking much longer/curing more slowly.
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dubhelix

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Decided to stalk-cure the ligero. In retrospect, stalk curing is a lot less work than priming. It takes up more room in the shed, and offers less control, but if I plan to grow way more tobacco...well, it might be the way to go.

Hoping for a robust sucker crop, too. We'll see.
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I'm fairly confident that I could fit 72 stalks on the rafters in my little shed (twice that if I installed a second level of waist-high "rafters")...which is on my mind, as this years production is probably not going to make enough Snus for a years supply.

I estimate that I consume about one 42g can of Skruf a week, so I need perhaps 60 cans worth, so about 2.5 kilos of finished Snus, half of which is tobacco and half of which is water weight, so 1.26k (~44oz) of tobacco flour.

I'm not sure how much each plant will yield, so I'll aim for "too much" next year.
 

deluxestogie

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... if I installed a second level of waist-high "rafters"...
Although I have had some "baby" stalks, like those of closely spaced Orientals, that were short enough to hang at waist height, most of the stalks that go into my shed have very little room to spare between the pendant tip leaf and the floor. My hanging ropes are about 6 to 7 feet above the floor. Keep in mind that all the upper leaf on a stalk will be hanging straight down after it wilts. So a 5 foot stalk easily requires 6 feet of hanging room.

My impression is that stalk-harvested leaf requires roughly 1/2 the floor space of primed leaf, hung in a single tier. From the FAQ: " In a single tier, estimate 1 sq. ft. / plant for primed leaf; ~1/2 sq. ft. / plant for stalk cured (with at least an 8' roof)." If you hang primed leaf in two tiers, and stalks in one, then the square footage is similar per plant.

Bob
 

dubhelix

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Well, I learned a lot this year. Overall, my grow was more organized than previous years, and I did a better job monitoring and managing my plants, as well as recording dates, weights, and so on. The yellowing and Air-Curing went much better this year, nothing at all dried green, and most leaves are a rich red-brown color, and are aromatic.

There are several things I intend to do differently next year:

1) grow several times as many plants
2) lay down black weed barrier fabric to limit mud splash
3) control aphids earlier, before it's hopeless
4) try BT to limit hornworm damage
5) let leaves mature more before harvest
6) try Bob's 'Lectric fence priming method
7) perhaps stalk cure a greater portion of the crop.

I've brought the first half of the Volado in from the shed. The weight is pathetic, but I guess that's why they call them "flyers".

40 leaves Volado, .30 lbs

hopefully this stuff holds up ok in the bags until the rest of the crop is done color curing.
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