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Photo of my tobacco - OldDinosaur

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BigBonner

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Bob:

I was out back checking, and my Bolivia Criollo plants are definitely more compact than the photos you have attached. My tallest is about 5 1/2 feet, and has produced (including primings) 24 or 25 leaves. They are still growing and have yet to produce a bloom head. The leaves are also very thick. I fertilize the heck out of mine, and believe that high doses of fertilizer will contribute to a denser more compact plant. Something I learned during my rookie year was to use more fertilizer. I produced plants successfully last year, but the yields were disappointingly low. Plants that should be producing four or more ounces were producing more like 2 or 2 1/2 oz.

In my younger days, I worked in the agricultural chemical industry. I acquired a high degree of expertise in dry fertilizer blending and application. The literature I have been reading on line from, I believe it was University of Kentucky, recommended: 60 - 90 #'s of N, 15 #'s of P, 15#'s of K, and 15#'s of S per acre for a tobacco crop. I'm hitting mine in the 90-10-10-15 range over the course of the growing season. (I have calculated this down to a gnats eyebrow.) Our local farmers never use K and rarely use P, as the soils are fairly abundant in both of these. I spread my fertilizer out over three applications at planting and twice more at approx. 30 day intervals. Last year I only fertilized twice. Also at planting time, I put a smidge of Miracid (a more acidic version of Miracle grow) in the holes to give some micro nutrients. It seems to work. We used to do a lot grass for seed fertilizing, and the fertilizer would look like a small snow storm passed through after the spreader passed. Grass for seed uses 150 - 200 #'s of N per acre. These spreaders were serious industrial machines that were 45' wide and required a pretty substantial tractor to pull them. Where I live, we farm on steep hillsides. Our modern tractors weigh 60,000 #'s and have 600 H.P. diesel engines. And they still slide down the hills!

Wes H.

P.S. I miss my Ammonium Nitrate. Those guys that blew up that building ruined that one for the rest of us. Now a days I use Calcium Nitrate, an acceptable but expensive substitute.

I grew Criollo Bolivia Black back a few year ago . It grows big and seems to take for ever to bloom. It is really sticky / gummy .

Here is just one of my soil samples Per Acre . All soil will require different amounts .
560 LB 50% Sulfate of potash

590 LB TO 660 LB 34% Ammnium nitrate ( Side dress in 250LBS per acre )
No Lime

You can still get Nitrate 34-0-0 but it has a coating on it no so that it can not be used to blow up anything . It is the main ingredient in Tannerite target explosives .
 

BarG

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Larry, I have called every fertilizer company in Texas to find Sulfate of potash. Every feed store heh heh . It is obsolete here.
If any one knows of a supplier in Texas please let me know. They act like i'm crazy for asking.
 

BigBonner

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Larry, I have called every fertilizer company in Texas to find Sulfate of potash. Every feed store heh heh . It is obsolete here.
If any one knows of a supplier in Texas please let me know. They act like i'm crazy for asking.

Here we have a few feed stores that sell's fertilizer in bulk or bag . In bulk you can go in and tell them what you want or show them your soil samples and they will mix up the fertilizer for you . They supply fertilize buggies / Wagons that we pull with our truck to our crop field . There we attach it to our tractors and set the opening on the back of the spreader to match how many pounds per acre we want to apply .

In a bag you have to take it as close to the N P K numbers as you can find . Like what you are looking for 50%sulfate of potash The bag will have 0-0-50 on the outside showing it is Potash .

On a bag of fertilizer the 0-0-0 is Nitrogen First number -Phosphorous second number - Potash Third number. The higher the number the more of that type of fertilizer will be in the bag .

Back year ago when we did not have any place to buy loose bulk fertilizer . Farmers would apply 1500 to 2000 pounds per acre every year in bagged fertilizer. . This had some soil here built up with too much fertilizer . When the University of KY came out with soil samples , they said farmers are using more fertilizer than they need to , to grow our crops . By going with soil samples and bulk mixing farmers would save money by not buying more fertilizer than we need to and still grow our crops . I always like adding more fertilizer than samples call for .
Find a feed store that sell fertilizer and get a bag with the highest last number you can find .
Potash here is around $700 a ton .
 

deluxestogie

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It means Tim doesn't understand what either of us is writing. Or maybe that you discuss interesting details about your grow. Or maybe it's because we have both planted a few of the same varieties. Or maybe that you live in eastern Washington, and I live west of Washington, D.C.

Who knows?

Bob
 

Charly

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Welcome Old Dinosaur :)

Congratulations for your crop, your plants look big and healthy !
 

mwaller

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Correct me if I'm wrong - Muriate of Potash is generally not good because it contains chlorine, which is toxic to tobacco plants.
Is Sufate of Potash the preferred "high octane" potash amendment for tobacco crops?
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Bob:

Well, I was just curious on your perspective. Some people don't like commercial fertilizer. I rely on it, and could go on and on about nitrate vs. ammonia vs. urea etc. As I said before, I was in that business. (There is a whole discussion I could be making re: fertilizer vs. organic, but this is a public forum!) I shy away from Insecticides as much as possible, as I don't want those kind of things residing on my tobacco. Late in the season, I have had some problems with aphids. I brush them off with an 8" bench brush before I string my tobacco. Only certain varieties seem to have aphid problems. I'm lucky, we don't have tobacco horn worms around here. I have seen tomato horn worms in the past, but that has been many years ago. Those Sphinx moths get big! I remember the first time I saw one, I mistook it for a hummingbird! I also brush my tobacco before I shred it. Twice cleaned means minimal contaminants, which is a good thing. I have occasional problems with earwigs taking small chunks out of some leaves, but I don't treat for them. The damage is minor, and I can live with that.

In re: Washington vs. Washington, my tobacco really likes this heat and bright sun. And it is dry heat. Humidity is only about 15% out there. As long as I keep them watered, they are happy plants. Fortunately, I have a small well, so I don't have to pay through the nose for city water. I don't know much about the other Washington except that it is hot and humid in the summer and that it is full of politicians and bureaucrats. Isn't Blacksburg famous for something? I've heard of it, but I'm not sure why. I'm a westerner. Been all up and down the west coast including Alaska, but never been east of the Mississippi. (They made us learn how to spell Mississippi when I was in grade school!) I'm into rocks and minerals, so I have been to a lot of obscure places to collect. If you have ever watched a show on the weather channel called "Prospectors," I have been up that mountain 8 times (Mt Antero, Chaffee County, Colorado, elevation 14,269'.) A hellish high altitude place. You can drive most of the way to the top, which stops on top of the south knob at about 14,100 feet. (If you have a good sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle and don't mind some rather scary driving.) I knew what I was getting in to before I went, & I got a prescription and an oxygen apparatus to take along.

Also, on the subject of "Frenching," of all the plants being effected by this (about 11) there is only one where the meristematic tissues have been damaged. That one is probably a goner. The rest will survive but not produce much. Oh well, live and learn. There's no substitute for experience.
 

deluxestogie

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Chlorine is not toxic to tobacco, but it reduces its ability to combust. That's only a problem if you intend to smoke it (so, okay for snus, etc.). Last year and this year, I used "low chlorine" 10:10:10 designed for vegetable gardens. And I'm happy with the results. (I have no choice in the formulation, since this is the only low chlorine fertilizer available locally.)

If you can adjust to brushing away dried aphids from your leaf, that's certainly the safest approach to aphids. For the last two seasons (2015 and 2016), certain of my varieties were clobbered with aphids, despite ample spraying with Dawn in water. They did not affect the plant growth, but they pushed me over my limit. Rolling a cigar with aphid-coated leaf takes roughly twice as much time as working with clean leaf. Boo.

So this year, for the first time, I have added imidacloprid to my transplant water--a one time good deal. The result has been excellent. I'm just now (early August) beginning to see some aphids appearing on tiny suckers, so its effect has pretty much dissipated. It effectively suppressed (that is, mercilessly killed) flea beetles and aphids, and seemed to make tiny hornworms loopy, increasing their mortality. On a number of plants that clearly showed leaf damage that resulted from budworms nibbling on the growth tip, the actual, living budworms were MIA. By mid-season, I began to find some live budworms. Also, the second wave of hornworms were unaffected by imidacloprid.

The bottom line on the imidacloprid is that it is fairly effective, safe for pollinators of tobacco (little to no imidacloprid reaches the nectar), and goes away to poison heaven before harvest. And this year, I am not suffering from "soapy water sprayer finger."

Blacksburg is home of Virginia Tech (Hokies football team; mass shooting some years back). This part of Virginia is above the Blue Ridge, and not part of the old tobacco belt. D.C. is a 4 hour drive.

Bob
 

BigBonner

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Correct me if I'm wrong - Muriate of Potash is generally not good because it contains chlorine, which is toxic to tobacco plants.
Is Sufate of Potash the preferred "high octane" potash amendment for tobacco crops?

That is correct .
Sulfate of potash is for tobacco .
Muriate of potash is way cheaper than Sulfate of Potash . By law we can only use a small amount of Muriate when we plant tobacco . We can use up to 100 pounds per acre if we wanted to . I don't use any Muriate on my tobacco .
You can apply Muriate in the fall and the chlorine will be gone by springtime .
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Potassium Chloride is the mineral Sylvite. It is mined by the (literal) megaton for Agriculture and industry. Not to be confused with Sylvanite which, if you had a ton of that, you would be a wealthy fellow. (Look that one up in Wikipedia!)

I am attaching some new photos from today.

Tobacco Seedlings 8-05-17-55.jpgTobacco Seedlings 8-05-17-54.jpgTobacco Seedlings 8-05-17-52.jpgTobacco Seedlings 8-05-17-53.jpg

Photo 1, shows my back fence with African red peeking out looking at the neighbor. Said fence is about 7' tall. You can't see it in the photo, but Ternopolskii 14 is doing the same. My tallest plant from last year was Ternopolskii 7, which measure out at 8' 5". The Ternopolskii 7 was a good tobacco for both fast air curing and cigarette blending, but the extra tall plants require a lot of staking. Otherwise they tip over in the wind. I had to resort to some fairly heavy duty stakes that I pound into the ground with a hammer to keep them upright & growing. (Is that what you call keeping them on the straight and narrow? Kind of like a bunch of miscreant teenagers!) Photo 2, shows "Tabacum Alata" variety Jasmine. An ornamental tobacco I planted a few of just for fun. These open up in the evening and are very fragrant. They have a pleasant scent. Photo 3, today's pickings. A string of 65 Costello Negro (left) and a string of 80 Gold Leaf 939 (right). Both are now residing in my store room for initial curing. Photo 4, is the largest leaf from today's pickings. Costello Negro 29" x 16," which is bigger than I thought this variety would get. Must be the heat and sunshine. I have been picking the blooms off of my tobacco for a while now, and they are responding by branching and putting out more leaves. Their attempts to make new flower heads are in vain, as I patrol the tobacco plots & pop any new heads off ASAP. The results are that my tobacco, especially the bright leaf types, are getting very bushy on top. This is a good thing. I want production, not seeds.

More as time allows...
 

deluxestogie

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In general, if you remove all suckers (branches), the primary leaves will be larger and thicker. Fewer, larger leaves mean less handling labor for the same weight of tobacco.

Bob
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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I always remove suckers, although I wasn't exactly sure why, other than to prevent the suckers from draining necessary energy from the plant. I think of suckers as being branches / shoots that originate near the bottom of the stem and grow parallel to the main stem. (corn does this, & generally produces nothing but vegetation) I have a couple of varieties of tobacco that like to do that. I cut the extra stalks / stems off. Are you saying I should remove the top - most branching also?

Wes H.
 

deluxestogie

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Are you saying I should remove the top - most branching also?
Short answer: yes.

I have grown intentional and unintentional suckers of different varieties over the years. The wonderful Oriental, Prilep 66-9/7 produces sucker leaf that is as large and as flavorful and aromatic as its primary leaf. So, with Prilep, I allow the suckers to proliferate. After priming most of the primary leaf, I have successfully stalk-harvested and sun-cured (on the stalk) their candelabra of suckers.

With every other variety (I've grown nearly 100 varieties), the quality of finished sucker leaf, even if handled as carefully as the primary leaf, is at best mediocre, but more often is just crappy. So, I remove all suckers. This also reduces the burden of late season aphids, since they really like those young, innocent suckers. When I top a plant, the entire bud head is gone, and any subsequent sucker buds are promptly removed.

Bob
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Bob:

Something I learned through practical experience is to let leaves get mature and start to lose their color before picking. This aids the curing / coloring process substantially. I have three types (of 13) that don't seem to want to color down. My African Red, Connecticut Shade, and Ismir Turkish are very green. Even at the very bottoms of the plants. Will these guys start to color up at some time before harvest? Practically, I have until about Sept. 15th. That would put them in the ground for somewhere between 95 and 115 days (depending on when I planted them.)

Another thing I learned through the school of hard knocks, is that very green leaves have a tendency to "flash" green. I believe that this phenomenon was a combination of not enough humidity in my initial curing and insufficiently mature leaves. I still have two strings, now nearly a year old, of 50 leaves that are quite green and thereby useless.

Any feedback would be useful.

Thanks

Wes H.
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Bob:

Photo 1, branching I have been referring to. This is at the very top of the plant and is in response to removal of bloom heads. When I remove the bloom head, the plant starts another stalk in order to attempt to create a new bloom head. I have been told in the past that this is normal. Not all of my varieties show this phenomenon. Photo 1 is of "Harrow Velvet."

Photo 2, two "Ismir Ozbis" Turkish plants. Sorry for the bleached out photos, but these plants are very green & not showing any tendency toward senescence.

Interestingly, to blend two subjects together, I removed flower heads from these two Ismir's & they haven't shown any sign of branching, at least not yet. They are straight as a string & seem to be happy about it. (well, sort of straight, you just can't see the stakes & ties in the photo) These guys seem to be making up for their smaller leaves by producing lots of them. I think I counted 35 or more leaves on each stalk.

I planted a dozen total of Ismir, in two different plots of my garden. All are from the same seed stock. Yet about half of them are tall & skinny, 6 feet or better, (like the one's in the photos) with 8 - 10" leaves, and sucker free. The other half are substantially shorter, 4 to 4 1/2 feet tall, with 14 - 16" leaves and lots of suckers on the bottom of the stalk. The description in the electronic seed catalog said 5 to 6' with up to 16" leaves and nearly sucker free. I don't know what to think about these. I only planted 12, as they are largely an experimental type for me, mostly just for fun. I'm certainly not going to get excited about it. This tobacco growing is supposed to be a hobby. If it's not fun, why do it.

I realize that it is impractical to diagnose my situation from 3,000 miles and a couple of crappy photos away, but any advice is welcome.

Tobacco Seedlings 8-06-17-57.jpgTobacco Seedlings 8-06-17-58 (2).jpg

Thanks

Wes H.

Your previous post said that Wa. D.C. is four hours drive away. Seattle is a similar distance, about 5 hours away.
 

Hasse SWE

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I most say that I really like your pictures. I have been growing Izmir-Ozbas and you will see when they are ready (thy will change color at the edges) so just watching and relax.If you growing a variant that not change the color when it is ready to harvest, just take the leaf's in the "front" and pull it to the stalk. If the leaf speak with you "KNIX" means hey I am ready! If it doesn't say anything just let it be a few days and check it again..
 

deluxestogie

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The bottom line is that you've just got to wait for them. The more fertilizer they've received, and the later in the season that it was applied, the longer they will remain green.

My only experience with Izmir Ozbas ("Ozbis" is incorrect, and was listed incorrectly at several seed vendor sites. SustainableSeeds and Northwoodseeds have now corrected that error. Others haven't.) growing to 6 feet or more was when I planted them at traditional American spacing. When planted at "Turkish" spacing, which is 6-12" apart in all directions, they top out at about 3', with a traditional leaf length of less than 10". Also, Turkish practice is minimal fertilizer, and no irrigation. Leaves are primed individually. Izmir Ozbas is never topped. So these plants are masochists, and expect to be deprived. They are traditionally sun-cured. What you get with the traditional approach is:
  • a smaller leaf
  • much more aromatic leaf
  • lower nicotine
  • an excellent pipe-blending Oriental
All this usually allows them to begin senescence earlier. My "giant" Izmir Ozbas was air-cured, and their non-traditionally large leaves nonetheless made some decent pipe blending tobacco. When I've gone the traditional route with it, it's nicer. [For the same area of plot, you end up planting many more plants, and harvesting a larger number of smaller leaves. For traditional Orientals, this is your best bet at ending up with the highest quality Oriental leaf. For example, in a 3'x5' bed, I'll typically put in 22 transplants of a small, Basma-type Oriental, like Izmir. With Prilep 66-9/7, the same size plot would get only 8 plants. It's a balancing act.]

Bob
 
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