Virginia Varieties

[Tobaccofieldsforever]

I have been curious about this for a while now. Does anyone know what variety of virginia tobacco plant the red leaf sold at WLT comes from? Same question with the bright leaf and lemon leaf. I believe Red Leaf is based on stalk position of the plant (top) but does it come from a plant called red? I know there is a bright leaf variety of tobacco, but I believe all mid stalk flue cured virginia tobacco is considered bright leaf...or maybe I'm wrong. So is it bright leaf tobacco from a bright leaf plant and lemon leaf tobacco (flue cured lower stalk position) from a lemon plant? Maybe I've got this all wrong. Can anyone help?

 

[deluxestogie]

When a bale of flue-cured tobacco is up for auction, the potential bidders can inspect the actual leaf, and read the geographic source of the leaf, as well as perhaps the grower of the leaf. I'm not aware of the name of the specific flue-cure variety ever being a part of the exchange. As I've pointed out many times, the color grades of flue-cured tobacco depend on the priming level. The flue-curing process is identical for all color grades, except for the initial time required to yellow the leaf--upper stalk leaf takes longer to yellow.

Some seed marketeers in the late 19th and early 20th century snagged some catchy, promising names for their varieties, such as "Virginia Bright Leaf" (all flue-cured Virginia tobacco is often referred to as "bright leaf"). Likewise, there are a number of tobacco varieties with the word "red". [How about the CT Shade variety know by the name of "Moonlight"? That's a really nice name. Or the lying marketeer who came up the with name, "One Sucker".]

Bob