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Golden Burley and Virginia Brightleaf - Are My Leaves Ripe?

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Hanzy4200

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Of all the stages in the growing process, this has to be the most nerve wracking. First the Golden Burley. I have already harvested the lower 4-5 leaves over the last couple weeks, and they have color cured nicely. However, the more research I do, I'm wondering if they were actually prime to be picked. They are taking on the telltale signs of mottled yellow and white, but are for the most part perfectly smooth. Every picture I can find of mature Burley, shows a yellow/white leaf the is very bumpy and almost wrinkled. It is essentially the opposite with the Virginia Brightleaf. They are very bumpy and "alligator skin" looking, yet they are only showing moderate mottled yellow spots, less than 20% yellowing. All picture I can find show a leaf almost completely golden in color. Should I wait? I would really hate to have put so many hours of work in only to render my tobacco inferior because of picking it too early.
Also, the "stems will snap like celery" bit isn't very helpful. I know from experience that many stems can snap off liker this long before ripe. I can also not base harvest off of flowering timeframe. I foolishly didn't keep a grow log and planted several sets at different times.

I'm sorry that I cannot provide pictures. I sat here and tried for an hour and it just isn't happening. Very difficult to upload here.
 

DonH

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Based on your description you could pick them now. If you do they would be milder than if you waited, so it depends on your taste. If you like strong tobacco you could wait a bit. If you like lights you could pick now. Or pick some now and wait on some then compare.
 

deluxestogie

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Burley is traditionally stalk harvested--a process that allows the very bottom leaves (mud lugs) to become trash, and the lower lugs to become tattered. This works economically for production-scale harvesting.

I've found that with burley (at least, with Kelly, Golden and Harrow Velvet), the mud lugs are often excellent leaf, if primed when ripe. So I prime the lower leaves, then stalk-harvest the plants when the remainder of the leaf is generally yellow.

There is really a lot of leeway in when you harvest. Although commercial grows need to target a specific market, your home grow is whatever you choose. For flue-curing VA Bright, I sometimes wait for a suitable size batch of yellow leaf. If there is a batch of matured green VA Bright when the flue-cure chamber is available, I'll go with that.

For air-curing, it's easier with leaf that is more yellow, but if your shed conditions are good (warm and moist), then even immature leaf will color-cure to decent leaf.

I'll snap a photo of my Harrow Velvet tomorrow. The bottoms are yellow, the upper is yellowing, and the tips are green. Both the bottoms and the mid leaf could reasonably be primed now, and still turn out good. I'll probably do one more priming, then wait a week or two for stalk-harvesting.

Bob
 

Hanzy4200

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FAIRTRADE.jpgFAIRTRADE2.jpg


Thank you Knucklehead DonH! That was all I needed to do, re-size them. This is my first year, but I already know I'm better at growing tobacco than working a computer. The top is the Virginia and the bottom the Burley.
 

skychaser

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Both could be picked now but I would wait another week or so myself. The Golden Burley will turn a bright lemon yellow when it is fully ripe. Pick it then and you can't go wrong curing it. When the top leaves start to look like the one in your photo you can cut the whole plant and hang it instead of priming it. GB stalk cures very well.
 

ArizonaDave

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Both could be picked now but I would wait another week or so myself. The Golden Burley will turn a bright lemon yellow when it is fully ripe. Pick it then and you can't go wrong curing it. When the top leaves start to look like the one in your photo you can cut the whole plant and hang it instead of priming it. GB stalk cures very well.

Just out of curiosity Skychaser, should he leave a foot on the bottom for a second plant like Bob does to get more leaves? Or does that not apply to these tobaccos?
 

deluxestogie

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Just out of curiosity Skychaser, should he leave a foot on the bottom for a second plant like Bob does to get more leaves? Or does that not apply to these tobaccos?
I generally do not grow a sucker crop. It is usually inferior quality leaf that needs to color-cure during poor shed conditions (due to their late-season harvesting).

Bob
 

Hanzy4200

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Just out of curiosity Skychaser, should he leave a foot on the bottom for a second plant like Bob does to get more leaves? Or does that not apply to these tobaccos?

I'm not sure what he would do, but I definitely plan to. I had 2 Golden Burley plants potted in front of the house that didn't get all that big and matured early. I chopped them about 3 weeks ago, only leaving maybe 2 inches of stalk. They both have developed dual main stalks and currently have lots of 7-8 inch leaves. Should surely be worth harvesting in another month or so.
 

deluxestogie

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Harrow Velvet Burley maturity

Everyone has his own notion of mature vs. ripe. The appearance of maturity also varies with the variety of tobacco as well as the time of day. In the photos below, taken near mid-day, the leaves are fairly wilty looking, so appear less rugose (bumpy) than they might appear in the early evening.

Garden20140730_1388_HarrowVelvet_maturity_400.jpg


Garden20140730_1389_HarrowVelvet_maturity_400.jpg


Bob
 

Hanzy4200

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Thanks Stogie, great pictures. My biggest concern, especially with the Burley has been the lack of bumps and wrinkles. Every picture I've seen, aside from yours, shows major alligator skin. By Burley has the bright yellow/white color, but is smooth as silk. Waiting is hard. Many of these plants are 4-6 weeks past first flowering and have been topped 3-4 times. I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever fully mature.
 

Knucklehead

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Thanks Stogie, great pictures. My biggest concern, especially with the Burley has been the lack of bumps and wrinkles. Every picture I've seen, aside from yours, shows major alligator skin. By Burley has the bright yellow/white color, but is smooth as silk. Waiting is hard. Many of these plants are 4-6 weeks past first flowering and have been topped 3-4 times. I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever fully mature.

Are you seeing them during the heat of the day, or early morning before they wilt? As Bob pointed out, the wilt can change the rugose appearance of the plant.
 

skychaser

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Just out of curiosity Skychaser, should he leave a foot on the bottom for a second plant like Bob does to get more leaves? Or does that not apply to these tobaccos?

Depends on how much growing season you have left. It probably won't yield as much as the first crop did, But if you have enough time left, why not.

Golden Burley is very smooth leafed and does not necessarily get the bumpy alligator look some other Burleys get. Mine has always gone from light green to yellow when mature and bright lemon yellow when fully ripe. Like in Bobs photo of Harrow Velvet, you can see that the bottom leaves in this photo are fully ripe and the middle leaves are mature and nearly ripe. Both could be picked and would cure beautify.
 

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ArizonaDave

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Depends on how much growing season you have left. It probably won't yield as much as the first crop did, But if you have enough time left, why not.

Golden Burley is very smooth leafed and does not necessarily get the bumpy alligator look some other Burleys get. Mine has always gone from light green to yellow when mature and bright lemon yellow when fully ripe. Like in Bobs photo of Harrow Velvet, you can see that the bottom leaves in this photo are fully ripe and the middle leaves are mature and nearly ripe. Both could be picked and would cure beautify.

That's a nice looking plants! That's a great tip. We have a perpetual year of a few months hot as hell, then in the 65*-75* for the next 8 months. We don't freeze except once in a blue moon (about 7 years or so). I'm transferring a lot of my current plants (Black Mammoth, VA gold, and Ergo burley) to 6 gallon food grade pails sometime this week, running a fan, clipped leaves, and exposing the bigger ones to outside a few hours a day.

I like the size of the golden burley the most! I did want to ask you some questions on some of your seeds, so I can figure out what to buy from you.

I'll try to find your thread again, so I can ask some questions.
 
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