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Growing under shade cloth

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BigBonner

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I have bough two bales of shade cloth and a old stringing machine . Each bale of cloth is supposed to be right at 400 ft long and 30 ft wide . I don't believe the bales are that long , but I will find out when I unroll them .
I will have to figure out how to work the machine and cut me some Lath's for it .
I may not get my shade up and running right until next year .

What varieties would be best under shade ?
 

Jitterbugdude

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Any variety that you can use as a wrapper. I've grown (under shade): Vuelta Abajo, Connecticut Shade ( go figure), Florida Sumatra and a few more that I can't remember.
 

deluxestogie

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In many growing areas (Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, etc.), filler varieties like Corojo and Habano are grown under shade for wrapper, and in full sun for filler. In one of rainmax' Cuba videos, a guide at the Robaina plantation states that their Robaina cigars are entirely Corojo 99, with the wrapper grown under shade.

There are many variants of CT Shade. All of them perform well under shade, and rather poorly in full sun. When FL Sumatra wrapper was commercially grown in Florida (prior to the collapse of the industry there), it was grown under shade cloth.

My guess is that some varieties will reach impressive heights under shade (certainly the CT Shade varieties do that), and require wire supports from the shade structure for each plant, whereas others, like Corojo 99 may not grow so tall, and may not need additional support.

Wrapper grown in the cloud forest regions of Ecuador are not grown under shade cloth, and do not have supplemental supports, even though the constant cloud and mist reduces solar penetration in a manner similar to shade cloth. I'm not sure about supports for Ecuador Sumatra wrapper and Ecuador CT Shade wrapper.

I would suggest setting up a "small" test canopy this year, just to see what you get. Having to install wire supports for each plant is a massive undertaking for a large grow.

Bob
 

BigBonner

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I did not calculate CT Shade plants into my grow this year . I found the Cloth and machine after my plants were half grown .
I could do what I have in Ct Shade , Corojo 99 , Florida Sumatra and a couple of others .

My CT Shade grew very well last year until one week of rain in middle of the summer . That drew out a lot of bugs and I was trying for Organic CT Shade . It went very well until that one week or worms and bugs . Now I have a bunch of holey shade leaf . What I grew was thin and really light comparing the weight to other leaves of the same size

I am going to have to do some thinking on this as I already have my hand full .
 

webmost

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I did not calculate CT Shade plants into my grow this year . I found the Cloth and machine after my plants were half grown .
I could do what I have in Ct Shade , Corojo 99 , Florida Sumatra and a couple of others .

My CT Shade grew very well last year until one week of rain in middle of the summer . That drew out a lot of bugs and I was trying for Organic CT Shade . It went very well until that one week or worms and bugs . Now I have a bunch of holey shade leaf . What I grew was thin and really light comparing the weight to other leaves of the same size

I am going to have to do some thinking on this as I already have my hand full .


You do it I'll buy some. I noted last year the Amish north of me grew some little patches of shade. Prolly experimenting, cause I have not seen it before. I planned on going up there in summer & seeing if I could score some.
 
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