Deluxestogie Grow Log 2018

[deluxestogie]

It's time for me to purchase some MiracleGro Peat for my starting mix. But we have a snow storm approaching, so it may be a few days before I can get out of my driveway. [This time of year, I put my trust in the solar angle to perform snow removal.]

This morning, each time I thought I might be hearing the sounds of an approaching storm, it was a false alarm. It was just the peanut butter oatmeal cookies that I baked yesterday. They were the real deal--no flour, and they were huge and thick and yummy. They were so good that I consumed about a pound of them yesterday afternoon, washed down with milk. Today all those whole oat inhabitants of my cookies are once again clamoring for attention. Holy smokes! It may be the sound of my serum cholesterol being violently sucked away. In the future, I'll stick to baking cookies with just peanut butter.

On that theme, there's a hazard to my baking at home. Although I can fully control the constituents of bread or cookies or custards that I bake, insuring that they are always healthier than the factory facsimiles, I am simply unable to control my consumption of homemade bread or homemade cookies, etc. Hence the gathering storm. [Or maybe it's a collective groan of all my timekeeping devices that were just arbitrarily shoved an hour into the future. Who know what happens to the spacial dimensions of the universe, when you screw around with the time dimension. And now, my cookies are an hour older than they should be.]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Comstock Spanish evicted!

Some of my 2017 Piloto Cubano PR has just come out of the kiln. Judging solely by its appearance, I will grow the Piloto Cubano in 2018, instead of Comstock Spanish. The weather will allow me to perform a taste test by the end of the week.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Frozen Sucker Crop: status update

The suckers of Piloto Cubano PR and Corojo 99 that had repeatedly frozen, and were harvested in December, initially looked like this:

Their aroma was truly vile. The only leaf that had been harvestable consisted of suckers that had remained clear of the ground. Any leaves that touched the ground even a little bit were either moldy or rotted. Those that overlapped to any extent retained patches of green. Those that were lucky were able to repeatedly dry and thaw in the sun and air.

I placed the stinky hands into the kiln, and kept them there for a total of 7 weeks. For the first two or three weeks, the kiln emitted an awful smell. Today, they look like this. Most remarkable is that their smell is interesting, even tempting. I haven't smoked any yet.

My understanding of what's going on is that:

• The chlorophyll must be fully cleared in the sunshine, rain, wind and ice.
• The cold exposure does not damage the two oxidizing enzymes within the leaf.
• Given the absence of chlorophyll, and sufficient heat and moisture and time, these enzymes are apparently able to fully clear the proteins and carbohydrates that would normally have been degraded by metabolism within the living leaf during color-curing.

It may be practical, when leaf is initially accidentally caught in a hard frost, to harvest all of it immediately, string it with wide spacing, then leave the strung leaf hanging in the sun until the chlorophyll clears. This would be followed by prolonged kilning. Just leaving the frozen leaf on the stalks resulted in over 80% of the leaves being lost.

Unanswered at the moment is the question of the extent to which repeated rain exposure of dead leaf removes nicotine and other desired compounds. And of course, it yet may taste like crap, despite its promising aroma.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Gee, that looks really good.

 

[Charly]

Your cookies are looking very appetizing ! Do you have a receipt to share ? I might be tempted to try it

I look forward to seeing how your frozen crop will smoke.
Last year I let some plants in the ground during winter, but all molded very fast, so I tried none.

 

[deluxestogie]

Starting Tobacco Seed

That's it. Eight varieties. As soon as a radicle emerges from the seeds of a variety, they will be transferred to 1020 trays, 1 seed per cell. The Rabo de Gallo Negro and Sweet Oronoko came out of the freezer two days ago, and are now on a heat mat as well.

I'm aiming for transplanting in mid-May.

Bob

 

[Charly]

Great start !
Good luck with your new strains, I will follow your grow blog with interest (as each year)

 

[deluxestogie]

I have to comment on what a pleasure it is to start only 8 varieties. I believe this is the lowest number of varieties I've grown since my 2010 season (or was it 2009?). A long time ago. My max was 43, and I will never consider such craziness again. Of the 8 varieties this season, two are new. I always try to grow at least 2 new ones per season.

Bob

 

[greenmonster714]

I'm definitely going to grow the five varieties you sent to me. I have to check my leftovers from last year. I may have a couple but I doubt I'll go any higher than you have. I'm hoping I still have some Goose Creek Red beans. I didn't get to grow them last year. It'll be fun as always watching your blog and garden grow.

 

[skychaser]

My max was 43, and I will never consider such craziness again.
Bob

lol One year I did 114 strains. I had 2500 plants bagged. Now that was crazy! Never, never, never again!

Now I shoot for 35 to 40, which always ends up being closer to 50 somehow.

 

[deluxestogie]

If I'm not mistaken, Knucklehead did grows of well over 100 new varieties per season, for two consecutive seasons, collecting seed for all of them. He is recuperating on sabbatical.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

I haven't heard from Knucklehead in a long time. Hope he is doing well.

Polygon55 does over 100 strains every year. But he grows far less than I do in the total number of plants per strain. Personally, I find all the "bookkeeping" that is necessary for so many strains harder than actually growing them.

 

[ciennepi]

Good luck Bob, for your growning season and for you too. I dont know why, but from all the kind people of the forum you seem to me the most real friend of all.

 

[deluxestogie]

Thank you. I can be as much of an ass as anyone, and I'm more arrogant than most. I do try to be candid, and have no worries about exposing my ignorance and errors along with my knowledge. With a bit more luck, I'll turn 70 years old in about 6 weeks. That's old enough to publicly share failures as gleefully as successes. And I do enjoy this forum's gossamer tendrils reaching across the planet. But thank you.

Bob

 

[Charly]

Come on !
Don't be so modest

I agree with Ciennepi : you share so much with everyone ! Successes or failures, everything is good to help us learning more about tobacco
I am glad you are here

(and I am glad there are so many good people here !)

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Bob pisses me off more than anyone. I wouldn't change him one bit though.

 

[deluxestogie]

I'm loving springtime. Birds chirping, flowers blooming. Deep snow.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Seed Beginning to Germinate

Swollen seed, some white tips, some emerged radicles.

Three of my varieties have begun to germinate. If I chose to, I could use a toothpick to place one seed (either white tip or with emerged radicle) each into 1020 cells. I'll wait a bit.

I began the tedious process today of cleaning my trays.

I use a fresh cell insert each year, but reuse the tray with holes and the tray without holes (as well as the lattice tray). The former two need cleaning, then spraying with a chlorine kitchen spray, then rinsing.

The lattice gets the 1020 tray without holes. Into that I place the 1020 tray with holes. Into that I place a new 48-cell sheet of insert. I use the same seedling mix as for the germination cups:

• MiracleGro Peat: 2/3
• Pearlite: 1/6
• Vermiculite: 1/6

Altogether, I'll set up 4 trays for this season.

Bob

Oh! And about that weather forecast graph...change the weekend snowfall to a now-predicted 1 foot.

 

[deluxestogie]

Looks like I'm getting a foot of snow. Yay.

Bob

 

[BarG]

Good luck this year OLD MAN! Us youngsters wish you well.