cotillion's Second Grow Blog 2015

[cotillion]

Hello all. After a successful first season I am ready to start another small tobacco grow. For this year I have decided to grow Prilep, Del Gold, and Burley 21. I plan to turn this into snuff and a bit of pipe tobacco and maybe some snus or dip. I have high hopes for the Del Gold as it was developed just down the road from me so I expect it to do well. Thanks to Northwest Tobacco Seeds I received my seed order back in January and I’m off to a good start.


I started all the seed March 28 with planting planned for the last week of May. Rather than sowing directly into the trays I used separate tupperware containers. The Prilep sprouted first on April 2, the other two came up the next day. Instead of using 72-cell trays like I did last year, I got the larger 18-cell ones. Since I’m not planting too much, these will be more suitable to my needs and give the plants more room to start with. Over the past weekend I transplanted 3 seedlings per cell and will thin to the healthiest ones as they grow.





I made some small improvements to my growing setup since last year. I purchased two more lights which allows each variety to have its own shelf. By using the 18 cell trays I can rotate the individual cells to position the plants as the outer ones bend towards the brighter light in the middle. One day I’ll be able to get better lighting but I think this will work for now. I currently have the lights on a timer between 7AM and 9PM and will increase the time by a couple of hours once the plants are established.




I don’t have a solid grow plan for now other than putting the Prilep in the long narrow bed I grew my rustica in last year and splitting the larger bed between the other two. The weather looks good for this coming weekend and I’ll get out there and get the layout finalized.


I’ve enjoyed catching up on all the grow blogs and hope everybody has a great season.

 

[DGBAMA]

Looks good. You will find the second year still full of learning, but much easier than the first. Planning your gardening time is much easier after having seem them through the growth cycle the first time.

 

[Knucklehead]

Looks like a nice set up. Good luck with your season.

 

[cotillion]

A week later and I have some concerns. The Prilep started out a bit scraggly but now many of them are laying down even though the leaves look healthy. I don't think it's dampening off, I've started other types of plants in the past and if I recall correctly the sign of dampening off is death of the stem where it meets the soil. Although the stems are uniformly scrawny there is no sign of rotting between the soil and the leaves.



I think these larger cells were a mistake. Using the 72-cell trays I could water from the bottom and every cell was uniformly moist. After watering these from the bottom some are now bone dry and others are damp. I haven't watered since my last post. I've left the Prilep alone as all the cells are still spongy to the touch. The Burley and Del Gold had some dry cells and I gave them a conservative amount of water from the bottom and a spritz from the top to hopefully bring them all to the same level of moistness. From left to right: Prilep, Burley 21, Del Gold.



There was also a bit of mold in some of the cells which I removed before watering. Last year I used the seed starting soil from Schultz but when I was ready to start and went to my local store all they had was Miracle-Gro. I recalled reading mixed stories about the Miracle-Gro stuff but I decided to give it a try anyways. I'm not sure if the soil has anything to do with the poorer performance this year or not but that is another variable I changed from last year.

After watering the Burley and Del Gold I moved all the trays about an inch further away from the lights. This should give all the plants more uniform lighting. The lights I have are not quite wide enough to give the entire trays full light. The outside gets a bit less light than the inner cells so I've had to rotate them a couple of times. I could fix this by either getting longer lights or seeding in 72 or 48 cell trays and leaving the outer cells empty. I think I'll get 72 or 48's next time.



With a bit of luck they will perk up by the end of the weekend. If not I still have time to sow another batch and start again.

 

[Knucklehead]

Well I'll be darned. I assumed damping off was a form of drowning due to the name, but after reading your post I decided to look around the net. It turns out damping off is a disease caused by fungi or fungi like organisms. Interesting. Some good links:

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...off.html/RK=0/RS=ipi6JwhUiazFiNrI8IXRfVHI314-

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...b07.html/RK=0/RS=2ocswF8_1hfIJK9WIP9Ttom3_nk-

Images:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs...acco+damping+off&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

 

[Knucklehead]

After enlarging your picture, it looks like the seedlings may be suffering from spiral root:
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...oots.pdf/RK=0/RS=lOsthCnzTdoZud2jb4tmoZACjrc-

Image of spiral root:



More images of spiral root: https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs...acco+spiral+root&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

 

[BarG]

They don't always sell the good soils locally at feed stores and loews, and home depots. That miracle grow seed stating is some good stuff. That is the first I have seen with potassium sulphate instead of potassium chloride.

 

[Knucklehead]

A video on filling trays with soil. Posted by Bigbonner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bePf-5W98H4

 

[BarG]

A spiral root on a seedlimg. Hell it would probably do it good.

 

[BarG]

Have you ever seen a spiral cedar tree? I know where one is .

 

[POGreen]

Are you growing to make some snus cotillion ?

PO

 

[cotillion]

Well I'll be darned. I assumed damping off was a form of drowning due to the name, but after reading your post I decided to look around the net. It turns out damping off is a disease caused by fungi or fungi like organisms. Interesting.

I'd always thought the same thing as well, that it was caused by too much moisture while the seedlings were getting established.

It does look like spiral root as you suggested. I'll get a better tray this weekend and start them again. Thanks for the information!

 

[cotillion]

They don't always sell the good soils locally at feed stores and loews, and home depots. That miracle grow seed stating is some good stuff. That is the first I have seen with potassium sulphate instead of potassium chloride.

Yeah, the other two are doing well so I guess I can't blame the soil. Good thing too - I still have a bag and a half left!

 

[cotillion]

Are you growing to make some snus cotillion ?

PO

Hi PO, most of my stuff will go towards dry snuff but I'd like to try some snus as well. At one point I was going to get a PID and use it with a crock pot to cook snus but now I am thinking about a Raspberry Pi with the appropriate hardware. I could then eventually use the Raspberry Pi to control a kiln but that is way off in the future.