days to maturity

[LeftyRighty]

I think I know the the answer to this question, but asking anyway.
I have a few strains of tobacco, that when seed starting, I had an initially very poor germination, only about half as many plants as wanted. So, I started a second batch of seeds, about 2+ weeks later, and got the remaining plants that I wanted.
By the time it came to put them into the ground (and it was a late spring), both sets of starts appeared pretty much the same - same height, leaf size, etc. Really could not distinguish between the early/late starts.

These plants are maturing, half are in full bloom, the other half just now showing buds - a couple feet shorter and at least a couple weeks from blooming. This is happening to both burley and bright leaf strains.

I had the assumption that "days to maturity" started on ground planting time. Apparently, it is seed germination time. Correct ???

In the future, if I re-start more seed, I'll know to mark or isolate these. I hate the mixed appearance of these in the garden. Looks like I got different strains in the same row.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I had the assumption that "days to maturity" started on ground planting time. Apparently, it is seed germination time. Correct ???

You start counting when you transplant them in to the ground

 

[LeftyRighty]

Maybe it's just the cold, cloudy, wet spring we had.
But, the only strains I have that are showing this characteristic, half maturing differently, are the ones that had significant different seed starting times.

 

[FmGrowit]

Do you know for sure that the flowering plants are the ones you started first?

Stress will trigger seed setting also.

 

[DonH]

I forgot what the end date is. Flowering? Or seed pods?

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Alligator texture in the leaf for mature, but many choose to harvest earlier for personal taste reasons

 

[LeftyRighty]

No, I did not seperate the early seed from late seed plants - just mixed as I planted. But the difference in early/late bloom is the same. And, yes, stress may be a factor also - been a wierd spring and early summer.
I also have some turkish strains, early/late seeded, doing the same thing. But they're also probably stressed because I planted them the last week of April, dug them up for an early May snow storm, and re-planted after the snow melted.

My YTB bloomed last week, plants all uniform, as seeded all at the same time. Nice big leaf, but the plants are only 2+ feet tall, 14-16 big leaves, short, squatty plants. Over 6-7 ft tall last year. This has really been a wierd growing season.

 

[deluxestogie]

Days to maturity are measured (arbitrarily) by ARS-GRIN as the number of days between transplant and 50% of the plants with at least one open blossom. Since the ARS-GRIN maturity values are mostly fiction, they are useful only as a wild guess. Keep your own notes for the real numbers.

Bob

 

[DGBAMA]

My VA Gold seeds were set in germination tray the same time as all the others but sprouted sporatically over a several week period. They were neglected until there were enough of them to fill a 36 cell tray, after all the others had been moved from cell trays to individual cups. they were never transplanted to cups; straight from the cell tray to the ground; and a week later than the cup planted starts at that. Watching them; the later planted Virginia are getting going I am starting to suspect that they will overtake and out produce the other varieties which had "better" care. Strange.