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2014 Knucklehead Grow Blog

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POGreen

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My trip was nice but hard. Lots of rain in Baskia and low temperatures for this time of the year. I drunk a lot of beer and eat lots of pintxos.
On the picture is one of my twins doter. On the right is not my wife!
Blog update? What is blog?...what is update...

Nice picture there rainmax !
 

Knucklehead

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I have re-evaluated the way I was sun curing my Orientals and have made some changes. The biggest change is in how I string the leaves. After watching some Turkish video of the folks stringing their traditionally grown Oriental leaf, I noticed that they weren't piercing the stem, they were piercing the lamina at a junction between the stem and a strong secondary vein. Pictures follow. I also examined some of Don's Oriental leaf and found the same piercing on some of his leaf. Stringing Orientals is now easier and faster than stringing any other leaf.

Krumovgrad 90 was the first variety I tried this on. The speed is beyond belief. This coat hanger full is yellowing in the shop before being moved into the sun.

Krumovgrad 90.JPG

The two following pictures show where to stab the leaf. Drop down from the butt of the leaf enough to get a strong secondary vein. Pierce the lamina at the triangle formed by the junction of the main stem and the secondary vein.

Stringing Orientals 2.JPGstringing Orientals.JPG

Sun Curing Orientals on the modified coat hangers. Each variety is labeled with a strip of surveyors tape that I use on bud bags, harvested seed heads, curing leaf, etc. It's cheap and works very well.

sun curing orientals.JPG
 

Knucklehead

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Miscellaneous pictures of tobacco stuff going on right now.

Besuki finishing the cure in my garage. It was yellowed in my shop. I leave the doors to the shop open at night for higher humidity. The garage doors are almost always closed so I cycle the green leaf into the shop, then move the yellow leaf to the garage, and then I will finish off stem drying on my propagation mats in the basement.

Curing Besuki.JPG

This is a coat hanger full of Duzce. An Oriental. It is yellowing in the shop prior to sun curing.
Duzce priming yellowing.JPG

Orientals yellowing in the shop.

yellowing Orientals.JPG

The start of a Besuki sucker grow in a bucket. In a few days I'll pick the best looking sucker of the three in the pictures and eliminate the other two.

Besuki sucker crop.jpg

Maryland 609 finishing the cure in my garage. I had them yellow in the shop where I am keeping the humidity up by keeping the big door open at night. The garage door stays mostly closed so humidity is lower and temps are higher. I move them to the basement to stem dry on my propagation mats.

yellowing Maryland 609.jpg
 
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Knucklehead

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Pictures of various varieties in the patch.

Amarillo Parado a cigar filler variety from the Dominican Republic.

Amarillo Parado.jpg

Besuki wrapper from Indonesia. Priming has begun.

Besuki.jpg

Brazil Dunkel wrapper from the German Seed Site: German Seed Site

Brasil Dunkel.jpg

La Palma Havana from the Canary Islands. Seed provided by Markw. Thanks Mark.

La Palma Havana.jpg

Maryland 609. Huge leaves. Primed once already.

Maryland 609.jpg

Timor wrapper from Indonesia.

Timor.jpg

Although most all my Dark varieties were somewhat stunted this year. This VA 355 Dark Air is one of my favorites as far as it's growth habit goes. It has huge leaves. A taste test is in order to settle on a dark air variety from the many that I am growing this year for seed.

VA 355 Dark Air.jpg


 

Jitterbugdude

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Knucks, Looking good! I do not envy you with all those varieties. A lot of work, bagging, tagging, priming and keeping track of it all. I grew 6 varieties this year. It was so nice to only have 6 varieties to worry about instead of my usual 16-20. I can't even begin to image what it's like for you. You're growing something like 980 different ones right?....:)
 

deluxestogie

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Great tobacco.

I originally strung Orientals through the leaf, the traditional way, but found that gusty wind would carry away about 10% of them. I now exclusively string them through the stem.

Your Bezuki has a more promising height than mine. Maybe I'm just impatient.

Bob
 

AmaxB

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Lord Knuckles where do you find the time? Looking really good your going to have a lot of deciding to do when it comes to smoking..
 

CT Tobaccoman

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You have lots of great tobacco there, pal!!

Tell me, is "fire cured" actually burley or is a separate tobacco type? It looks a bit like Havana.

I'll get my digital camera next week while I make a trip to Conn. My MD 609 s looking real nice, good enough to show off.

CT
 

Knucklehead

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Great tobacco.

I originally strung Orientals through the leaf, the traditional way, but found that gusty wind would carry away about 10% of them. I now exclusively string them through the stem.

Your Bezuki has a more promising height than mine. Maybe I'm just impatient.

Bob

Only one Besuki in the patch has budded and been bagged. The Besuki in the pot at the house has gone through the whole cycle and is now starting a sucker grow from the left over stalk. It got about 7 ft. tall. The ones in the patch are still pretty short. The one at the house only had about 10 seed pods, which were eaten by bud worms. I don't know how it happened, thus the sucker crop. I really want a lot of seed from the Besuki for the FTT seed bank and for seed swapping with members. I'll get them somehow.
 

Knucklehead

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You have lots of great tobacco there, pal!!

Tell me, is "fire cured" actually burley or is a separate tobacco type? It looks a bit like Havana.

I'll get my digital camera next week while I make a trip to Conn. My MD 609 s looking real nice, good enough to show off.

CT

While you can fire cure just about anything, there are classifications for the ones traditionally used for various curing methods. Flue Cure, Dark Air, Dark Fire, Dark Fire/Air and even Dark Sun. I'm really interested in sun curing the Dark Sun and see what it tastes like. These are the varieties I'm growing this year. 3-4 of each variety except for the Orientals, I grew several of each Oriental variety.

VarietyPIClassOrigin
N126burley
N777burley
N88burley
KY 908596277burley
VA 510burley
KY 10552446burley
N 7371burley
Harrow Velvet552650burley
TN 86552522burley
2B Resistant 142 (TI 1442)292195flue cureItaly via Poland
Yellow Orinoko552783flue cure
Speight G28551318flue cure
Speight G70552497flue cure
SP 172flue cure
Coker 176551294flue cure
Coker 319552426flue cure
NC 82551311flue cure
NC 95552380flue cure
Coker 371 Gold552524flue cure
GL 737flue cure
K 149549109flue cure
NC 79551310flue cure
120513120513flue cureTurkey
Hicks552373flue cure
DT 518dark air
DT 592dark air
M&Ndark air
Vincent Harris Madole552773dark air
Hastings552375dark air
Little Sweet Orinoco552376dark air
Lizard Tail Orinocodark air
Shireydark air
Small Stalk Black Mammothdark air
Walker's Broadleaf552374dark air
VA 355604198dark air
Narrow Leaf Madole552710dark fire/air
Little Crittendendark fire/air
TND 950dark fire
TR Madole (Tom Rosson)552764dark fire
VA 409552508dark sun
VA 407557005dark sun
Eschly #1maryland
Pennbel 69552404maryland
Mackmaryland
Maryland 609552452maryland
Improved Narrow Leafmaryland
Isleta Pueblorustica
Mahorka #6 Yellow #109rusticaRussia
Nicotiana amplexicaulis271989otherAustralia
Hacienda del CurafillerCanary Islands
Amarillo Parado377898fillerDominican Republic
Colombian Garcia405672fillerHonduras
La Palma HavanafillerCanary Islands
Criollo (Ti 1376 )405646cigarCuba
404935404935cigarCuba
404951404951cigarCuba
#6055405645cigarCuba
Coroja405643cigarCuba
Remedios405667cigarCuba
Little Cuba405669cigarCuba
0-40wrapper
AST552585wrapperSumatra
Java BezukiwrapperJava/Indonesia
Timor405659wrapperJava/Indonesia
Brasil Dunkelwrapper
TekkekoyorientalTurkey
Krumovgrad 90orientalBulgaria
Krumovgrad 988orientalBulgaria
Prilep P66-9/7orientalMacedonia
Mutki494159orientalTurkey
Izmir-LebaneseorientalLebanon
Japan 8orientalUkraine
Visoka Marula286830oriental
Adiyaman494145oriental
Samsun-Canik Ti 1678494160oriental
Bitlishungarian
Duzce494152orientalTurkey
Izmir-Ozbas494157oriental
 
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CT Tobaccoman

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WOW. So many types!

That's the best way to learn, I guess--actually experience as many different tobaccos as you can. Your final conclusions will be interesting reading.

CT
 

Knucklehead

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You have lots of great tobacco there, pal!!

Tell me, is "fire cured" actually burley or is a separate tobacco type? It looks a bit like Havana.

I'll get my digital camera next week while I make a trip to Conn. My MD 609 s looking real nice, good enough to show off.

CT

This link takes you to the "Classification" area of the USDA's GRIN tobacco germplasm collection. You can look up accessions by Class: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/desc.pl?81001
All the Classifications listed by GRIN are on this page. Note that these are the classifications of N. Tabacum. N. Rustica is different.
 

Knucklehead

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WOW. So many types!

That's the best way to learn, I guess--actually experience as many different tobaccos as you can. Your final conclusions will be interesting reading.

CT

I sort of fell into it. Some other members and I received several (around 150?) varieties from the Nicotiana Project when Mr. Moats retired. Since they live up north and I have such a long grow season, they suckered me into grow outs. I've acquired several varieties by purchase through seed banks around the world, and I've acquired several varieties by gifts or swapping seed with other members from around the world. Most of the varieties I acquired had a total of around 100 seed per variety. I have somewhere between 350-400 different varieties in my personal seed bank. All varieties but around 50 need to be refreshed due to age, or the numbers increased for sharing. Deluxestogie claims my seed bank is larger than that of most countries. Some of them are 12 years old or older, so I'm refreshing some and increasing the numbers of others. I hope to donate 78 new varieties to the FTT seed bank this year for request by FTT members and swap and trade with other members to gain a few more. I think I was able to produce a little less than 40 new varieties last year for the FTT seed bank. Commercial growers are limited to very few varieties per year, and those are dictated to them by Big Tobacco. I think the preservation of the old varieties is now in the hands of the hobby growers, and I hope to help make as many of those varieties available as I possibly can. It's up to the hobby growers to save most of these varieties from extinction. Last year and this year have put the whuppin' on me. I'm bagging two plants of each variety and three of each of orientals. Next year I'm growing about 7 varieties just for leaf for myself. If I grow one single variety for seed I hope every member on this forum beats me senseless with green tobacco stalks. You all have my permission.
 

Knucklehead

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With that many to choose from, I bet you can't pick 10 or less next year.

2015 Grow List
Reams 158 flue cure
Costello Negro flue cure
TN 86 Burley
Maryland 609 Maryland
VA 355 Dark Air (or Shirey, to be determined by taste test)
Izmir-Ozbas Oriental
Prilep P66-9/7 Oriental

Ha! I plan ahead. lol
 

Mad Oshea

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That is not a beast! That is My daughter and hand muff! ( don't tell on Me) Now I see why the sun comes up and goes down in joy like I do. Tell Her that! My Wife is a babe like You have. Kudos!!Mad PS: and the little Muff too......
 

DGBAMA

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2015 Grow List
Reams 158 flue cure
Costello Negro flue cure
TN 86 Burley
Maryland 609 Maryland
VA 355 Dark Air (or Shirey, to be determined by taste test)
Izmir-Ozbas Oriental
Prilep P66-9/7 Oriental

Ha! I plan ahead. lol
You may plan ahead, but you still have to be able to stick to the plan. Lol. Winter has a way of adding seeds to the "grow pile".
 
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