CT Tobaccoman's Backyard patch blog

[CT Tobaccoman]

Hello, Friends.

As some of you know, I can raise 300 acres of shade tobacco in the Connecticut Valley, but I am going to need your help growing my 30 burley and MD 609 plants under the very unfavorable conditions in my backyard.

I live on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, a mile from the sea. My soil is little better than sand. First testing of the soil showed no nitrogen, no phosphorous, adequate potash, and 7.5 PH.

So, I prepared the soil by broadcasting a lot of cottonseed meal, some dried manure, and sulfur. A week before transplanting, I soaked the rows several times with ordinary blue plant food. However, I neglected to broadcast anything to protect against fungus or insects.

The plants have been in the ground for a week now. They are alive and growing new leaves. Because the soil is so barren of nutrients, I water them daily with the plant food and add dissolved Urea nitrogen to it. The latest soil test showed a little nitrogen, a little phosphorous, adequate potash, and a PH down around 6.5. So far, so good. The cottonseed meal and manure should kick in later.

I plan to soon side dress with some nitrate--not urea. I still feed them almost every day with the plant food containing a little extra urea. There is moisture 8-10 inches below the surface. Hurricane Arthur came by but the next day it was dry as ever. The very sandy soil really absorbs water fast, and a lot of my fertilizer is probably leaching away.

There are lots of bugs around that I have never seen before. I have sprayed with some Admire and Orthene that I have from before, but I don't have much of it. I don't have a pesticide license anymore, so I will be looking for over the counter products that contain acephate and imidacloprid, as well as Acrobat-Dithane substitutes against blue mold, fleck and calico. (dimethomorph and mancozeb.) Also looking for a Quadris substitute (azoxystrobin.) I use the local Agway store.

I made some nicotine spray from fire cured Kentucky leaf. Can I use that as needed, almost daily, to kill bugs on sight? Will it harm the tobacco? I have been using Sevin. It is somewhat effective, but not totally.

I see various black fleas and common house flies on some leaves, sometimes. There are a lot of ants around, big ones and little ones. I doubt that they are threats, but am not sure. Something is eating the leaves--making small holes in the lamina. Maybe something else has eaten entire lamina, leaving only stem and veins. These are occasional things, and most plants haven't been attacked by mystery bugs--yet.

It might not be possible to get decent tobacco with the soil that I have, but I plan to battle to the end. I have a tendency to over do things; over-water, over-feed, over-spray but maybe here that will be a good thing. Would it be OK to add the home made nicotine solution to the daily plant food?

I really appreciate any comments and suggestions anyone may have, especially ideas about the too sandy soil and alternative, less poisonous ways to kill bugs. I'm don't have time to figure out what bugs are the bad ones--I want to kill them all and let God sort them out.

I noticed that citronella candles work pretty good out on the porch at night. Maybe I could set out 6-8 of those in my garden and let them burn all night? Please, any ideas at all.

Thanks, and good growing to all
Charlie

 

[leverhead]

I think it was the natives of your area and maybe South of there that would put fish in the hills when planting corn or squash. It sounds similar to POGreens's methods, maybe for different reasons. Take a look at his log, http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3995-POGreen-s-Grow-Log-2014?p=82916&viewfull=1#post82916

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Thanks, leverhead. The natives that were here when the pligrims came did raise their tobacco about 5 miles from me, in an area that is more conducive to farming. Turnips are grown a lot there now.

Just an interesting note: Indian women were in charge of the crops while the men hunted and fished. But the tobacco could only be grown by male elders of the tribe, who would pass their secrets on to the next generation. That is pretty cool. They say that the type of tobacco that the Indians grew no longer exists, but it must have been some kind of shoestring rustica.

CT

 

[deluxestogie]

For next year, it's practical for that size grow to add gobs of composted manure, which will increase the water holding ability, and improve the nutrients. The best commercially available composted manure (e.g. Black Kow) analysis is 0.5: 0.5: 0.5 (NPK). The cheap stuff sold at many big box stores is 1/10 that: 0.05: 0.05: 0.05, and not worth the trouble. Since it's possible to grow tobacco directly in a bag of Black Kow, you can't really add too much. Consider raised beds.

Sandy soil is often ideal for bright Virginia flue-cure varieties.

For this year, adequate water and any standard (chloride-free) fertilizer will probably take care of it.

All sorts of bugs and slugs feast on tiny transplants. Once the plants are larger, the intrinsic nicotine limits it to tobacco-specific herbivores.

Bob

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

I like what PO Green did--burying organic matter below the depth of the root ball at setting. An improvisation on plowing the cover crop under. I did that too, sort of, turned over the grass and weeds, but it was all in a hurry and late. It will pay off mostly next year, if I rent this place another year.

Bob's suggestion of getting compost under the sandy soil is a great idea too, for nutrition as well as to help retain moisture underground.

I started everything late. Didn't think about growing any tobacco until April, when the bug hit me bad, so I'm banking on the cottonseed meal, plant food and fast nitrogen. And a warm September. The cotonseed meal and the sulfur is 4-6'' under and the rain on the sand will probably take it lower.

All I can get around here is Urea nitrogen. Guess that's OK, but I'd rather have something like ammonium nitrate, which I am used to, and which, I think, will lower the PH, which still seems a bit high to me at 6.5-7.0. I did sow a lot of sulfur, though, which probably hasn't kicked in yet.

But, heck, they are growing. What me worry? In a couple weeks they should be looking nice, if the mystery bugs don't get them.

Got some acephate and some imadacloprid for bugs, which we used on shade, and some mancozeb for blue mold and mosaic prevention. Can't get the dimethomorph that goes with the mancozeb, but I have a little in concentrate, probably enough for this year. I'll alternate chemicals, and won't need them much, hopefully, when the plants get larger. All that stuff is relatively safe, and leaves the plant in a few days. Glad to have it on hand, but don't want to use it until it's really needed.

At last year's tobacco growers meeting in Conn., in February, they talked about new regs about pesticide residue in cured leaves, so a new spraying schedule was worked out by the Experiment Station, putting heavier pesticide and fungicide applications earlier and less later. It is common sense, since most of the shade is already picked by mid August--but I am not growing shade. If I had thought about this all winter, I would have gone more organic.

Thanks for the tips, guys. Not so nervous now.

Charlie

 

[Knucklehead]

Best of luck with your season. Are you able to post pictures? We love pictures.

Here's how: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3809-How-to-post-pictures-from-your-computer-to-FTT

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

No digital camera. No smart phone. Still use the single use film cameras, but I do have a scanner. Not much to look at yet.

I have lots of pics of Connecticut farms--could scan some of those--my picking crew acting out for the camera--those are funny. Good pics of Medio Tiempo and shade, of course. I'll work on it. And thanks for the luck--same to you.

Somebody mentioned yesterday starting a place to put photos, especially old pics. That's a good idea. Maybe we would get some pics that aren't already online.

 

[Knucklehead]

My local Verizon store quit selling telephones without a camera on them. It doesn't take a smart phone, just a Swiss Army Knife Phone. That's what I called them when I tried to buy my last phone. "I just want a telephone, not a swiss army knife". Even the cheapest phone they offered had a dang camera on it. That's just more to tear up on them to my way of thinking.

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Ha ha, I use a Tracfone and buy my minutes at Cumberland Farms. I guess I am kind of a Luddite. Didn't need cellphones or even computers before we got them. In fact, before the computer age there was less paperwork and far more efficient business people on the phone. Ah, progress.

Anyway, my set of Larry's plants is doing OK, the MD 609 doing better than the burley, all growing new leaves. Seems I have beat the bug problem with Acephate and mancozeb. Then again, bugs don't live long and are worse in Spring and early Summer. But no more little holes or eaten leaves. No blue mold reports yet--has anyone heard about any blue mold in the USA yet?

Maybe it would be useful to have a thread dedicated to Blue Mold reports. The Conn Ag. Station issues reports when the Blue Mold gets into the Ohio Valley or Pennsylvania since from there the prevailing winds bring it to the Conn Valley. If I hear from them, I'll let y'all know. There used to be reports from North Carolina, but I believe that has been ended.

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Think I may have some sore shin, or did have it. Due to the age of Larry's transplants, and the fact that they were delayed in the mail over July 4th weekend, a few arrived in rough shape. Larry must have foreseen this, because he included plenty of extras, for which I am very grateful. Some burley seedlings failed to thrive and did have soft mushy spots on the stems that look just like pictures of sore shin. Sore shin can be prevented by asoxystrobin (Quadris,) if you can get it. I couldn't find it OTC.

I replaced sickly burley plants with MD 609, so now they are growing together in the same rows. So what? Anyway, I'm glad to have the 609 plants--that is not really easy leaf to buy.

I'd like to know what others might use to prevent sore shin on seedlings.

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Before the recent heavy rain I side dressed the plants with urea nitrogen and soaked the sandy ground around them with plant food. Cultivated and hoed them up to the leaves, burying stems. After the rain they are now showing a growth spurt--several new leaves appearing each day. That's the good news

The bad news is that a few plants are wilting very early in the day, well before the others, and these wilting plants are too dark green in color. I suspect a root problem. So far, they continue to live and make new leaves but they are not really thriving. Watering revives them somewhat, and at night they look fine praying.

As experiment, with one of these plants, I made a couple small holes in the ground near the plant and injected into the area of the roots a mixture of mostly acephate and mancozeb--insecticide and fungicide. Some copper sulfate too. If this plant recovers, then I have a solution to the problem.

A couple plants have not grown at all since being set out 2 weeks ago. They are not dead, but they are not doing anything--not even making new leaves. They are burley plants--maybe they have (or are recovering from) sore shin, which killed most of my burley. Generally, the MD 609 plants are doing much better.

No more bug problems, except maybe underground. Didn't prepare the ground against root eaters.

So, more than half of them are growing pretty and others are weak to greater or lesser degree. A couple of once weak plants have recovered. There are 26 plants now, about 20 MD 609, the others burley.

I guess if I end up with half my planting in good shape at the end, that will be OK, considering my late start and incomplete preparation of soil that is really just sand.

Can't say I'm saving any money. I'm doing it because I want to.

 

[Knucklehead]

Sore Shin:

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Tobacco/Pages/soreshin.html

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...DflVXdwfTHKbj4g&bvm=bv.71198958,d.aWw&cad=rja

http://eppftpserver.ag.utk.edu/profiles/tobacco/diseases/tob-sore.htm

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Knuck-Dude,

Yes, there was some sore shin, looks just like the pictures, but if it does not totally encircle the stem it is possible for the plant to recover, I think. That is probably what is wrong with the two that do not grow and do not die. It is something out of the past in Conn shade, immunity has been bred into it, but I understand that it is a problem in float bed grown transplants. Fusarium wilt, black root rot are other things that I never saw because of immunity bred into the plants or effective pre-plant pesticide.

Today's major threats seem to be coming from potatoes and tomatoes.

But I have seen plants with root damage, mostly from TCN (tobacco cyst nemotodes.) My dark green wilters are sick, but not necessarily terminal. I have seen slugs and snails around. TCN kills the plants outright, in patches. My thing here is different. I can't help thinking that I am going to have odd problems because I am growing in very sandy dirt. That big storm recently didn't even leave a puddle in low spots, just absorbed it like a sponge--but the soil is still moist a few inches down.

I guess, if they wilt abnormally, I'll just water them. Maybe my experiment of injecting fungicide and insecticide down near the roots will work.

I have 2 distinct problems on a few plants: MD 609 with early wilting and too dark and Burley that won't grow. I suspect sore shin with the burley and root damage with the other.

But there are only 5-6 weak plants out of 26, so, ...

I see one of your links is by James La Mondia in Conn. He finds axosystrobin good for a lot of things, but a 25 oz bottle of the stuff costs over $250! Quadris (asoxystrobin) has been labeled for shade tobacco since I left the business. Dimethomorph with mancozeb (Acrobat and Dithane) were what we used as fungicides 10 yrs ago--and I am using that now.

Problem is, once the plants are in the field, how to deliver fungicide to the roots and underground? Anyway, I don't have a flooding problem--the opposite if anything.

Hoeing to cover the stem to allow the plant to grow side roots is important, and is probably the best thing that I can do.

 

[Knucklehead]

Your post was the first time I had heard of sore shin. I was providing the links for other members that may not be aware of it as I wasn't. I'm sure you know all about it having been in the business. I'm looking forward to your Grow Blog. I may start up a collection to get you a cheap digital camera. We love our pictures.
(And the stupid little GIF thingys that Bob hates so much)

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Jim La Mondia is the "tobacco doctor" of the Conn Valley. Anybody has a problem they don't understand, they call him and he will figure it out. In his lab, he has the only seed cleaning machine in the Valley, which is over 100 years old. Once I spent 3 days there cleaning a dozen 5 gallon buckets of seed. That's a lot of seed!!!

He raises about 4 generations a year of shade and broadleaf, infects them with diseases, finds resistant strains, grows plants for seed and offers the seed to the farmers. He has developed pretty good resistance in the Conn seed to all the common tobacco diseases, and some not so common ones. But new diseases are always coming up. So, when I say the plants are resistant, it doesn't mean that they are immune. Too much rain, too much heat, etc can break down the resistance.

But he has greatly lessened the incidence of common tobacco diseases in the Valley like sore shin, black root rot, etc.

When I started out, we used cold frame seedbeds to grow seedlings. Now, almost everyone has switched to trays in greenhouses, but nobody in Conn uses the kind of float beds that they use in Kentucky and elsewhere. Heck, in my fathers day they were spraying DDT by helicopter and using chlordane dust.

A lot has changed in 50 years to reduce labor, but it hasn't been possible to mechanize the picking and handling of the leaves, which is why we are going under. Can't compete with the cost of labor in Ecuador.

My father once saw a machine in the post office used to bundle letters. He contacted the company that made them, and they came out to see if cured leaves at least, could be bundled by machine, but it could not be done without too much damage to the leaf.

The situation in the Connecticut Valley comes down to this--it is a good natural place to grow tobacco--one grower has been growing tobacco since the 1600s on land granted by the King of England. Broadleaf and Havana do really well, and other types may do well too, but shade tobacco is really a 19th Century technology and artificial and inefficient. Shade tobacco in the Conn Valley is just about over--800 acres are grown for a niche market for people like me who insist on USA shade wrappers. What remains of the tobacco land will go over to tobacco that is stalk cut. It is the only way to keep labor costs in the possible range.

 

[leverhead]

...Some copper sulfate too...

What does Copper Sulfate do for you?

...We love our pictures. View attachment 12060

It's pronounced tobacco porn.

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Copper sulfate is a gentle fungicide used in traditional seedbeds or trays (I don't know about float trays) that has some effect against mildew, algae, sore shin, brown root rot. It is usually applied once in Conn shade beds, as the first fungicide application. Gets rid of moss too. It is an old remedy--there are newer and better chemicals, but too expensive.

It doesn't really have any application to the problem that I am trying to solve, but since the problem is a mystery, I just threw a little of everything I have into the mixture.

The problem is that I suspect that a couple of my plants have root trouble, so I injected near the roots a bit of every fungicide and insecticide that I have, mixed with water.

It is cloudy today, so there is no wilting. The affected plants are wilting too soon in the sun.

Give me a few days, guys. I get the hint, and will get a digital camera this week.

Charlie

 

[Knucklehead]

Copper Sulfate is also used in ponds for algae control.

 

[BigBonner]

I believe it was shipping plants in the hot season . Dry plants ship easy but warm air and a closed box makes the plants sweat . I put wicking soil to pull out moisture .
I know the burley plants was pulled fresh and the root ball may have had too much moisture .
The Maryland 609 was dry and the root ball was dry and the plants was a little more tuff for the season .
The Post Office handler's also throw those packages when they handle them .

 

[CT Tobaccoman]

Larry,

Yes, and it didn't help that it was the 4th of July so it took 5 days to get here. As it is now, the MD plants are thriving but the burley plants were alive but not growing. But It's all good, actually I am glad to have the MD--they are looking interesting.

I re-set the burley a couple times, and every dead one had what looked like sore shin, maybe it was just a mushy stem. The ones that I still have in the ground are just now starting to grow new leaves after sitting a long time, not dying and not growing. They may yet make it.

I only have 26 plants, so 80% of them are doing well and the others might catch up. I have no complaints.

They had really long stems, not like the shade when we set it here. Bigger root balls too. Is that because of the float method? In Conn we feed and water them from above, in greenhouses or cold frame seedbeds. Nobody does the float thing. Your plants seem more mature at setting time than ours. You guys actually clip the seedlings? We never did anything like that.

Charlie