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Charly's grow blog 2018

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Charly

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Ok... I did it again...

Yesterday evening, I had those little baby plants waiting and I did not want to waste them... so I put them in the ground too !
Since I have not many place left, I used them to expand my "oriental growing style crop" :)
38 additionnal plants (spacing : 15cm) plus the only two Yenidje plants that wanted to germinate.

10 different strains (some bright leaf, some cigar, some burley...) all mixed together :)

cropZ.jpg

This completes the planting.

So I have 368 plants in the ground (203 with traditionnal spacing, 75 orientals and about 90 other plants at 15cm spacing (6"))
18 different strains... a little bit more than I planned, but that's fine.
 

Charly

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This morning, I counted the number of PVY infected plants : 21.

The Foreheimer, the Vuelta Abajo and the Colombian Garcia are the most affected strains.

This year, the first signs of PVY came sooner (one week earlier than last year, if I compare the planting dates) : only 3 weeks and a half after transplantation.
 

Charly

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Are you able to identify which are the Yenidje?

Bob

Yes, the Yenidje are the two on the bottom. They have a little bit more space around them (I would like to see if they grow correctly, and hope that they are good enough to give me some seeds for next year).
 

Charly

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News from the front ! -stop- PVY infected plants count update : 55 -stop- New disease : brown spot -stop-

PVY continues to appear on my tobacco, now I have about 55 plants showing symptoms of it.
32 plants with small symptoms or small growing delay.
23 plants with big symptoms or big growing delay.

Total count : 55 on 223 plants => one quarter of my plants.

The worst strains (the strains with the higher degree of infection) are :
- Colombian Garcia (11 infected plants on 14, with 9 really struggling and small)
- Vuelta Abajo (11 infected plants on 20, with 9 really struggling and small too)

- Foreheimer G. III (8 infected plants on 11, but the majority of them are not too much ugly... yet)
- Delhi 34 (9 infected plants on 15, but the majority of them show only a little growth delay and small symptoms)

And since misfortune never comes singly : a new disease apperead a few days ago in my garden : Brown Spots !

It touched the lower leaves primarily and a bit less the upper leaves.
Some strains seems very sensitive to it : Delhi 34 for exemple (picture below).

crop1.jpg
One of the leaves showing the more of these brown spot

I already had some spots like these last year but not a lot. This year, we had 3 or 4 weeks of high temperatures and high humidity, brown spot seems to love this weather.
The weather changed a little, maybe it will stop to appear (brown spot is a fungal disease... I hope less humidity will help it go away...). Time will tell.

All in all, I am not too much worried, since it's the third year I grow tobacco, and each year I have a lot of struggling plants.
That's why I plant as much as I can, to be sure to get some good leaves in the end of the season :)

Some new strains are going fine : the Piloto Cubano for exemple, with only a few pvy symptoms and only a few brown spots, I hope they will continue to be healthy !
The same with the TN90 : no pvy sympoms and only a few brown spots ! finger crossed !!

And this year, a lot of baby tobacco plants are growig everywhere between the one I planted !
crop2.jpg

I will let them grow and if they grow big enough I might harvest them :)
 

deluxestogie

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Tobacco disease has driven the development of new varieties for over a century. Your analysis of more sensitive and less sensitive varieties (to PVY) is helpful information.

In successive seasons, I had problems with brown spot, particularly on one variety: Jalapa. It is a robust, richly flavored Nicaraguan native strain that I enjoyed. I simply stopped growing it, and seldom see brown spot, even though the fungus is persistent in the soil. So I believe variety selection is a key factor in avoiding it.

Bob
 

Charly

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Thank you Bob.

I share my notes on the PVY disease in hope that it will be useful to others :)
The bad thing about PVY is that there are a lot of different strains of the disease, so what I share are just the observations I can make in my area.

Year after year I find some resistant or semi-resistant tobacco strains, I hope this list will be useful for those who have to deal with PVY...

I hope this brown spot was strong this year because of the weather (hot and humid)... I already have enough to do with PVY :D
The most infected strain (Delhi 34) is at the exact spot where I grew Jalapa last year, but I do not remember clearly if I saw brown spot on Jalapa last year... I'll have to check my photos ! :)
 

deluxestogie

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Brown Spot growth is favored by humid weather. Like mold, it increases its dispersal from infected leaves to uninfected leaves most effectively in dry weather.

Bob
 

Charly

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That's sad to hear.

Yes, it's sad :(
But for now they are more healthy than last year's virginias :)
So I still hope I will be able to harvest some ;)

You know, in my garden I have real struggles to grow bright leaf strains...
Last year, the "virignia" strains I tried were the most infected and unhealthy plants of all (Hickory Pryor, Primitive Orinoco, Goose Creek Red), from which I harvested nearly nothing...

This year, I try Delhi 34 (for which I have to admit that I have high expectations :D, Yellow Leaf 36 (from which I don't know much), and Frog Eye Orinoco. I hope one of these will give me some nice Virginia :)
The Yellow Leaf 36 seem to have less difficulties, but I don't know if it's a real "bright leaf" :)

Anyway I will continue to try new strains each year, I am sure I will find some which will like my garden ;)
 

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The past year I have big problems with PVY on Vuelta Abajo and Virginia Gold. This year I have mid problems whit Vuelta Abajo and no problems with Nostrano del Brenta, Bucak and Yellow Pryor......until now.
 

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Nostrano del Brenta is one of the strains that seem to resist pretty well to PVY, I grow some for the second year now and there is still no symptoms :)

Thanks for the info on the Bucack and the Yellow Pryor :)
I hope they will continue to be fine for you !! If they do, I will certainly try them too, so I can see if they do fine in my garden :)
 

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For a few days now, I am harvesting mature/ripe bottom leaves.
Since we had some really hot and dry days, after harvesting, I put all the leaves in piles on a paper for 2 to 5 days (depending on how long they take for yellowing correctly), then I hang them on a wire so they can finish the color curing correctly.

Here is a picture of some Delhi 34 bottom leaves after 2 days in piles :
crop_delhi34.jpg

Then hang directly in the sun :
crop_delhi34_2.jpg
(I love this yellow color !)

Some Prilep, after 2 days in pile, lay down on the (sun burned) grass :
crop_prilep_suncuring.jpg
 

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And now some pictures of pests found on my organic tobacco these days :

Aphids :
crop_pucerons.jpg

Grasshopper (with a nice hole just eaten on the left) :
crop2.jpg

Heteroptera laying some eggs:
crop3.jpg

Sleeping snail...
crop4.jpg
 

Charly

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I have found at least 2 different sizes of clustered eggs on my tobacco leaves.
The biggest (about 0.3 mm each I think... next time I will measure them) are from these stink bugs.
I don't know which creature lay the small sized eggs... (which can be found in greater quantities)
 

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Nice picture with the babies coming out of their egg.
You are right, the eggs may be bigger than the size I wrote, maybe more about 1mm each. :)
 

Charly

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I have been harvesting some leaves on most of my strains the last weeks, pile curing a few days each time to help yellowing, but I am now facing a strain that seem to have difficulties to yellow : the Piloto Cubano PR.
A few leaves (bottom or volado) are in pile for 6 days already and only a couple leaves are showing some yellow or a little bit of brown... the others seems as green as they were on the plant.

Did you already notice that this strain is hard to color cure ?
Did I harvest them too soon ?
At what point of maturity are they meant to be harvested ?

Another question is about the "Yellow Leaf 36" : does anyone knows what type of tobacco it is ? It is clearly a "bright leaf" type, but I think they are more close to a burley... Has anyone already grew some ?

Thanks for your help ;)
 

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Charly: I have been trying to found info about YELLOW LEAF#36. But can't found any information about the parents. In my note I can see it is a variant from Ukraine and that I believe that it is some Maryland tobacco in. But also in my note I have put this after: (?). I don't use to tell about details before my work is done but in this case I do it and hope you understand that it's not shore.
 
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