FrostD’s 2023 Grow Blog
- Thread starter FrostD
- Start date
It’s been about a month and a half-ish since my last post. Had a few weeks of work travels and then a vacation last week in Mexico. All tobacco & garden plants have been chopped. This was my biggest year yet at harvesting seeds. Not just tobacco seeds (Habano 2000, Criollo, CTBL, & CT Shade), but also a decent amount of flowers. Have 2 ziplocks filled with seed pods from just a regular hanging basket variety, purple flowers that we grew on top of our rain barrel, some dahlia seeds & tubers, and about a handful of varieties of Coleus seeds. Love the various looks of the Coleus plants. Can post pics up if anyone wants to see. The seeds are about the same size of tobacco seeds. So, I’ll have another back up hobby during the cold months here in Wisconsin. As far as my 2nd year of leaf harvest, you can scope out the pics below. I let the solo cup plants leaves do their thing and pretty much color cure on the plant, then picked them off. Still have some flash dried green leaves, even after using the towel method to try to assist. No worries though, will keep them all hanging until sometime early next year and will chuck any of the majorly dried green ones. Still, way better results year 2 over year 1. Much appreciation going out to all of you here, who’ve helped along this journey!
Onto planning for next year’s plant varieties and amounts to grow!
Onto planning for next year’s plant varieties and amounts to grow!
Nice haul!
Posting up my seed results to be able to reference later when I review my log.
Picked up a 600 micron, 400 micron, & 200 micron screens with this first batch. A 100 micron that was back ordered, arrived the middle of this past week.
I decided to collect seeds first from my Habano 2000 plant from this year. It had the most pods (at least 2-3 dozen pods) out of any other plant I tried collecting seeds from this past year. This was also my first year trying to collect seeds & 2nd year at growing.
Habano 2000 seed:
600 micron definitely works great at keeping large pod pieces out from the seed. It also was fantastic in allowing seeds to fall through. I’m sure there’s probably hundreds if not thousands of seeds that may or may not be stuck in some of the large pieces.
400 micron screen with seeds! There is definitely thousands if not a couple million. Not really sure, but more than my lifetimes worth! Still some pieces of “chaff” in with the seeds. Considering to sift them through the 600 micron screen again or make sure to chuck out the pieces once I use the seed.
200 micron screen looks like mainly dust/very small pieces from pods/immature seeds.
Bottom of 5 Gallon bucket is all just dust remnants and perhaps some very immature seeds.
Overall, extremely pleased with the results and how great these screens worked! HUGE time saver! Now to label a bag to put the seeds into for storage & cleaning screens for next batch of seeds!
Picked up a 600 micron, 400 micron, & 200 micron screens with this first batch. A 100 micron that was back ordered, arrived the middle of this past week.
I decided to collect seeds first from my Habano 2000 plant from this year. It had the most pods (at least 2-3 dozen pods) out of any other plant I tried collecting seeds from this past year. This was also my first year trying to collect seeds & 2nd year at growing.
Habano 2000 seed:
600 micron definitely works great at keeping large pod pieces out from the seed. It also was fantastic in allowing seeds to fall through. I’m sure there’s probably hundreds if not thousands of seeds that may or may not be stuck in some of the large pieces.
400 micron screen with seeds! There is definitely thousands if not a couple million. Not really sure, but more than my lifetimes worth! Still some pieces of “chaff” in with the seeds. Considering to sift them through the 600 micron screen again or make sure to chuck out the pieces once I use the seed.
200 micron screen looks like mainly dust/very small pieces from pods/immature seeds.
Bottom of 5 Gallon bucket is all just dust remnants and perhaps some very immature seeds.
Overall, extremely pleased with the results and how great these screens worked! HUGE time saver! Now to label a bag to put the seeds into for storage & cleaning screens for next batch of seeds!
I use a hand held blower to winnow out the chaff from the seed. If you have aphids you do not want to just blow across the seed with your mouth. Dead aphids have the nastiest taste on earth. Also try to keep them out of your nose. Yuck.
That’s not a bad idea @Knucklehead ! I never thought about using a booger sucker for kids… wait a min, computer keyboard cleaner! Is it better to keep the chaff out while storing?
Also, I definitely don’t want to taste aphids. I’ll take your word for it brother! I can only imagine your reaction tasting or inhaling them.
Clean seed is required for shipping internationally. Seed are pretty safe but chaff can carry disease.
@Knucklehead I picked these up and have noticed that they do help with blowing out some of the small pieces of chaff. Perhaps I’m doing this wrong, but I took a small spoon to a cop up a small amount of seeds. Air blew over the top of them to blow out anything that’s not seed. I was blowing it out in a separate bowl, so to not have to try to clean it more than once. However, when I poured the seed into a ziplock for storage, I still found some chaff in the seeds. Granted, it’s less than there was before, but still some sitting in with the seed. Now I’m debating my methods and whether I should toss the seed through the micron screens again to try to get cleaner seed. At my rate right now, it will take hours to get fully clean seed.
I dumped the 2 spoonfuls back into this large bowl to consider how I can make this task a little easier (if I can).
Looks like aphid wings.
Bob
Bob
Oh man! I hope not! The seed pods from the Habano 2000 plant I bagged the head on for these seeds didn’t appear to have any aphids move in on. I do know that 2 other bagged heads had some aphids get into the bag area though. Any other methods to help separate the seed from not seed or would be one of those weekend projects to sift through them for a few hours to ensure only seed is in my seed bag for storage?
You can try the Brazil nut effect. Try shaking or vibrating the seed to see if the chaff floats to the top. Then scoop off that layer of seeds, and concentrate on cleaning that smaller portion.
If your seed is for your own use, then I would not lose much sleep over a bit of chaff.
Bob
If your seed is for your own use, then I would not lose much sleep over a bit of chaff.
Bob
I use brazil nut/ gold panning action in the 400 micron screen with a gentle vibration back and forth motion, as the chaff rises to the top I remove the chaff with the blower. It goes quickly once you get the hang of it.
Alright! Final seed collecting results are in! There may be a little piece of chaff here and there, but found good methods that worked for me on trying to get just pure seed. 600 micron screen & 400 micron screen worked amazing! The 200 & 100 micron screens underneath collected some premature seeds & dust basically. From there, with the Habano 2000 & Criollo I used a big spoon to scoop up some seeds. From there used the handheld blower that @Knucklehead recommended… boy did that help! Then sifted the seed with a toothpick & tweezers to try to find any last bits that weren’t seed. Not 100% perfect, but way better than if I didn’t have these tools.
Results:
(Don’t mind the pics with the mention where I procured the “original seed” from:
Habano 2000=15.15 grams
Connecticut Shade= 0 (all pods had no seed to white premature seed)
Connecticut Broadleaf= .28 grams
Cuban Criollo= 3.14 grams
Cuban Criollo pods had a bit of dead aphids on them. Pre & post cleaning off plant & big matter on pods with my fingers/fingernails… yes dead aphids did get stuck in the fingernails. Nothing that a good hand washing can’t fix!
Results:
(Don’t mind the pics with the mention where I procured the “original seed” from:
Habano 2000=15.15 grams
Connecticut Shade= 0 (all pods had no seed to white premature seed)
Connecticut Broadleaf= .28 grams
Cuban Criollo= 3.14 grams
Cuban Criollo pods had a bit of dead aphids on them. Pre & post cleaning off plant & big matter on pods with my fingers/fingernails… yes dead aphids did get stuck in the fingernails. Nothing that a good hand washing can’t fix!
Too bad about the CT Broadleaf. You'll be able to plant only about ½ acre of it this year.
Bob
This blog post is almost a wrap! Been rehumidifying leaf from last year in the “casing cooler”. Can only fit so much in there without leaf breaking, since they are so dry. Have some flash dried green, but will deal with that later. I noticed that some leaf color cured pretty interesting. One side may be green, while the other side will will be yellow or a darker hue of green or almost grayish. Have the Connecticut Shade just about all bagged up (most likely tomorrow will be the last of it). Also have Connecticut Broadleaf & Criollo all bagged up. Habano 2000 still to go. Just by looks, the Habano 2000 generated the biggest leaves overall. All should be done and bagged up by the end of this upcoming weekend I’m anticipating. Just started seeds for this year and will get a new grow blog going either this evening or by tomorrow.
2023 Harvest & bagging for storage to let naturally age for now is a wrap! Still some green & semi green leaf in the bunches. Will get around to culling & tossing out the flash dried green ones eventually.
Connecticut Broadleaf:
WLT bag (left)=128 grams
1 Gal ziplock (middle)= 44 grams
1 pint ziplock (solo cup leaf)(right)= 17 grams
1 sandwich ziplock (solo cup leaf)(right)=9 grams
Total=198 grams (.436 lbs)
Cuban Criollo:
WLT bag (left)= 85 grams
1 Gal ziplock (middle)= 50 grams
1 Gal ziplock (right)= 59 grams
Total=194 grams (.427 lbs)
Connecticut Shade:
WLT bag (left)= 163 grams
1 gal ziplock (middle)= 95 grams
WLT bag (right)= 157 grams
Total= 415 grams (.914 lbs)
Habano 2000:
WLT bag (left)= 60 grams
WLT bag (middle)= 173 grams
1 Gal ziplock (right)= 40 grams
1 sandwich bag (solo cup leaf) (right)= 7 grams
Total=280 grams (.617 lbs)
Grand Total= 1,087 grams (2.396 lbs)
-CT Shade was the top producer
-Habano 2000 had the most largest leaves
-Chucked a small handful of Habano 2000 leaves due to too much mold on them.
-Habano 2000 also had a few big leaves with mold in the stem area.
Now, to let these leaves passively age until I get around to building a kiln!
Onto 2024’s grow!
Connecticut Broadleaf:
WLT bag (left)=128 grams
1 Gal ziplock (middle)= 44 grams
1 pint ziplock (solo cup leaf)(right)= 17 grams
1 sandwich ziplock (solo cup leaf)(right)=9 grams
Total=198 grams (.436 lbs)
Cuban Criollo:
WLT bag (left)= 85 grams
1 Gal ziplock (middle)= 50 grams
1 Gal ziplock (right)= 59 grams
Total=194 grams (.427 lbs)
Connecticut Shade:
WLT bag (left)= 163 grams
1 gal ziplock (middle)= 95 grams
WLT bag (right)= 157 grams
Total= 415 grams (.914 lbs)
Habano 2000:
WLT bag (left)= 60 grams
WLT bag (middle)= 173 grams
1 Gal ziplock (right)= 40 grams
1 sandwich bag (solo cup leaf) (right)= 7 grams
Total=280 grams (.617 lbs)
Grand Total= 1,087 grams (2.396 lbs)
-CT Shade was the top producer
-Habano 2000 had the most largest leaves
-Chucked a small handful of Habano 2000 leaves due to too much mold on them.
-Habano 2000 also had a few big leaves with mold in the stem area.
Now, to let these leaves passively age until I get around to building a kiln!
Onto 2024’s grow!
RoperLegacyWoods
Well-Known Member
What does it look like when the leaf flash dries green? I’m sorting out last year’s leaf (my first crop) and I’m wondering…
Hey @RoperLegacyWoods ! Basically, once you pull leaf and it doesn’t color cure to a yellow or brownish hue and stays green. Chlorophyll stays locked into the plant if it stays green. Personally I chuck the “flash dried” green as I don’t care to mess with them. In addition, I don’t have space for a kiln yet to age leaf. So I put leaf in big ziplock or old WLT bags with humidity packs and am letting leaf naturally age.
Here’s some of my leaf from last years crop that flash dried green.
RoperLegacyWoods
Well-Known Member
You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. Thank you.
