Problem Plant, Need Suggestions

[Byronodmon]

So I've got a monte calme plant, sold to me as Monte Calme Yellow but I kind of suspect it could be M.C. Brun.
Anyways it's planted in a big half barrel. I ran out of room so it grew alongside 4 pepper plants and a golden burley.
I did heavily fertilize early on to support the growth of all those plants in a small space but stopped 7 or 8 weeks ago. I didn't use any extended release stuff. The burley has matured just fine. The M.C. has basically zero yellow anywhere. It's been topped for weeks and weeks, over a month easily.

The problem is every leaf I've tried curing inside my curing box or in the air from this plant has cured almost completely green. The wind blew a couple leaves off and a week ago I tried the single lowest leaf and it still failed.

I tried Color curing it with 92 - 98% relative humidity and between 95 -103 fahrenheit.
This is the natural variation of my chamber closed with the crock pot on low. Depending on outside conditions.

First frost is dangerously close and I'm lucky it hasn't already happened.

Should I stalk cut and hope for the best?
Any other suggestions?
Maybe changes to curing chamber conditions?
Thanks ahead of time for any interest or help!

 

[deluxestogie]

Seems like stalk-curing will be your only option. Fertilizer late into the growing season, as you've described, tends to keep the leaf green and immature for longer. Forcing maturation can be chancy at 103°F, since 104+ begins to cook the leaf.

• Stalk-cut
• hang in a non-freezing location
• surround the plant with a loose, plastic garbage bag, if the ambient humidity is really low
• remove individual leaves as they color, to avoid mold

Bob