Have a nice day everyone. I wanted to ask how many kg of raw tobacco a plant produces and whether it is worth growing indoors with LED or NDL lamps?! How long do you think it takes for a plant to be ready indoors under a professional lamp and so on?
Is indoor growing worth it?
- Thread starter whotan
- Start date
PressuredLeaf
Well-Known Member
I’ve grown cigar tobacco - corojo 99 and little Dutch indoors. I did this with a professional tent and high quality LED, in pots. If you can’t grow outdoors, I’d say it’s possibly worth it. However, the yield is lower. I got around 2 ounces per corojo plant.
I would agree it’s probably worth it if you can’t grow outdoors. Also another bonus is you don’t have to worry about pests or disease.
How long does it take from seedling to harvest? That way I can roughly calculate how much electricity that would cost me! Electricity is quite expensive here! But for a few varieties that you can't buy, it might be worth it! How much light do tobacco plants need? Are a few tubes enough or should they be professional LEDs with 400 watts, for example, or vapor lamps?
PressuredLeaf
Well-Known Member
I didn’t measure the time in total. From my perspective, it was about the same as outdoors - maybe 10% quicker.
Tobacco doesn’t need a ton of light to grow, but it seemed to like all the light I could give it. My Grow LED was around 750 watts iirc. I think you could definitely get away with less wattage.
What are you wanting to use the tobacco for? The reason why I ask is my indoor cigar leaf was beautiful, extremely thin, and very elastic. However, the leaves are quite a bit smaller than outdoor tobacco, so I can only wrap smaller cigars with it. If your wanting pipe/cigarette or smokeless this is less of an issue.
Skafidr
Well-Known Member
I don't know much about indoor growing of things; what would be the point of using a fan here? Why would using a fan result in thicker leaves?
I am a trained ornamental plant gardener. The fan simulates wind! This is how the plant wants to develop more stable roots and thicker branches and leaves! So that it doesn't get damaged by the wind. Too much wind is not good either! Otherwise the plant becomes relatively stocky and doesn't grow as big! It's best to put a fan in front of it and run it on a low to medium setting! And change the place from where the wind should blow from every now and then !
My English is not that good and I sometimes use a translator. I hope you understand what I mean!
My English is not that good and I sometimes use a translator. I hope you understand what I mean!
Skafidr
Well-Known Member
Makes sense, thanks!
PressuredLeaf
Well-Known Member
I did not use a fan, so that makes sense! The other thing that could be an issue is the plant height. My corojo plants were touching the light by the end of the grow. A lot of tobacco plants get quite tall. The little Dutch was excellent though, it stayed around 3-4ft tall.
Your English is completely understandable to me. Besides, my posts are riddled with grammatical errors, so I can’t complain.
You could try carefully tying the plants down or cutting them off early enough next time so that the plant branches out more and doesn't get so high.
I'm not so sure about cutting though! I haven't grown tobacco myself and every plant reacts a little differently!
Hanging them down would work though! Depending on what kind of lamp you have, you should also keep some distance from the top of the plant! What kind of lamp do you use?
I'm not so sure about cutting though! I haven't grown tobacco myself and every plant reacts a little differently!
Hanging them down would work though! Depending on what kind of lamp you have, you should also keep some distance from the top of the plant! What kind of lamp do you use?
"Branched" tobacco produces sucker leaf, which is usually of a lower quality than primary leaf.
Bob
Huffen'Snuff
Well-Known Member
Lower light density may result in a larger wrapper leaf size.
I’ll add my 2 cents of what my opinion is here. For my job I work for a dehumidifier manufacturer and am part of their AG division (for almost a decade). On a daily basis I assist with climate control in indoor growing environments (sealed rooms & greenhouse projects). I communicate with HVAC contractors, distributors, electricians, architects, engineers on a daily basis. I don’t consider myself an expert, but have seen ALOT of different setups of various plants and am always asking questions.
What I can say is that FTT is my go to source for anything tobacco related and spent almost a year going through as many forum posts here before I started contributing. Priceless knowledge & amazing people here who are willing to share their experiences & information they’ve learned over the years.
As far as indoor & outdoor growing of tobacco plants, I agree with the points that @PressuredLeaf mentioned. If you can only grow inside in let’s say a tent, you have to take certain factors into consideration.
-Tobacco variety/strain- certain ones will be much better suited to grow in a smaller space. Some will stay 3 or 4 feet tall all the way until the end, others will grow upward of ~9 feet tall.
-Lighting- Higher the wattage the better… depending on what stage in life the plant is in. You don’t want to be blasting a seedling with a 1000 watt grow light. However, the difference between trying to grow with say a 60 watt light bulb, compared to a 100 watt or 200 watt grow light, will make a big difference!
-Media-Lots of different types of media can be used. I can’t recall seeing tobacco grown hydroponically, which in my opinion would add a lot of unnecessary cost to it. I typically use recycled soil from previous years. I amend it or add compost to it when I’m ready to transplant into their final pots/homes. The amendments/compost/soil mixture will take me all the way to when I harvest. This is also, without needing to add more during their growth process.
-Indoors compared to outdoors- I’ve tried indoor and plants tended to get stretchy seeking out more light. Overall, small leaves & thin stalks. Outdoors… free sun and a substantial difference on growth. I moved homes last month and primed or stalk harvested all of my plants in pots. The pots that still had little stalks in them that I need to clean out still, have all new growth and are growing a sucker plant. I never watered them or did anything with them. Tobacco plants can be very resilient! Mother Nature is a beautiful thing!
-Environment (indoors)- Having fans setup to make the plants “dance” help with stalk growth, but also help prevent micro climates within the space. All it’s takes is for your relative humidity to be over 60% for a 24 hour period for mold to grow. Granted it may not occur, but I like to be safe than sorry. It only takes 1 mold spore to land on a water droplet & a 60%+ RH for that fuzzy stuff to grow. Fans help with that disbursement of air.
-Bending down branches/low stress training- it helps with some plants, but with tobacco, I don’t see it helping. To @deluxestogie point, I could foresee lots of suckers popping up. Having that center and having plants grow like a Christmas tree, is the way to go imho. I wouldn’t mess with the apical dominance of a tobacco plant.
Overall, I @PressuredLeaf is right that the plants would generate smaller leaves and be smaller in totality. If that’s all you have to work with is growing indoors & don’t mind smaller cigars, smokeless, or smaller leaf, then I saw go for it! Unless you have a BIG tent with a tall ceiling, the plants will be limited in size or be trying to bust out of a tent (variety dependent). There have been multiple grow blogs of people here growing indoors as well.
The power of the sun, outdoor environment, not over loving, letting them do their thing, and watering only when needed is what I try to follow to produce bigger plants and leaf for cigars.
I say try the grow indoors, start a grow blog here on the forum and post pictures and updates. That way you can have a digital journal so to speak to reference. Not to mention, others may chime in and provide feedback or knowledge on things. It dramatically has helped me on my journey on understanding & growing tobacco.
What I can say is that FTT is my go to source for anything tobacco related and spent almost a year going through as many forum posts here before I started contributing. Priceless knowledge & amazing people here who are willing to share their experiences & information they’ve learned over the years.
As far as indoor & outdoor growing of tobacco plants, I agree with the points that @PressuredLeaf mentioned. If you can only grow inside in let’s say a tent, you have to take certain factors into consideration.
-Tobacco variety/strain- certain ones will be much better suited to grow in a smaller space. Some will stay 3 or 4 feet tall all the way until the end, others will grow upward of ~9 feet tall.
-Lighting- Higher the wattage the better… depending on what stage in life the plant is in. You don’t want to be blasting a seedling with a 1000 watt grow light. However, the difference between trying to grow with say a 60 watt light bulb, compared to a 100 watt or 200 watt grow light, will make a big difference!
-Media-Lots of different types of media can be used. I can’t recall seeing tobacco grown hydroponically, which in my opinion would add a lot of unnecessary cost to it. I typically use recycled soil from previous years. I amend it or add compost to it when I’m ready to transplant into their final pots/homes. The amendments/compost/soil mixture will take me all the way to when I harvest. This is also, without needing to add more during their growth process.
-Indoors compared to outdoors- I’ve tried indoor and plants tended to get stretchy seeking out more light. Overall, small leaves & thin stalks. Outdoors… free sun and a substantial difference on growth. I moved homes last month and primed or stalk harvested all of my plants in pots. The pots that still had little stalks in them that I need to clean out still, have all new growth and are growing a sucker plant. I never watered them or did anything with them. Tobacco plants can be very resilient! Mother Nature is a beautiful thing!
-Environment (indoors)- Having fans setup to make the plants “dance” help with stalk growth, but also help prevent micro climates within the space. All it’s takes is for your relative humidity to be over 60% for a 24 hour period for mold to grow. Granted it may not occur, but I like to be safe than sorry. It only takes 1 mold spore to land on a water droplet & a 60%+ RH for that fuzzy stuff to grow. Fans help with that disbursement of air.
-Bending down branches/low stress training- it helps with some plants, but with tobacco, I don’t see it helping. To @deluxestogie point, I could foresee lots of suckers popping up. Having that center and having plants grow like a Christmas tree, is the way to go imho. I wouldn’t mess with the apical dominance of a tobacco plant.
Overall, I @PressuredLeaf is right that the plants would generate smaller leaves and be smaller in totality. If that’s all you have to work with is growing indoors & don’t mind smaller cigars, smokeless, or smaller leaf, then I saw go for it! Unless you have a BIG tent with a tall ceiling, the plants will be limited in size or be trying to bust out of a tent (variety dependent). There have been multiple grow blogs of people here growing indoors as well.
The power of the sun, outdoor environment, not over loving, letting them do their thing, and watering only when needed is what I try to follow to produce bigger plants and leaf for cigars.
I say try the grow indoors, start a grow blog here on the forum and post pictures and updates. That way you can have a digital journal so to speak to reference. Not to mention, others may chime in and provide feedback or knowledge on things. It dramatically has helped me on my journey on understanding & growing tobacco.
PressuredLeaf
Well-Known Member
https://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/pressuredleaf’s-2024-indoor-grow-blog.12379/#post-218219
My indoor log for corojo 99. It’s not crazy detailed, but it may be of use.
My indoor log for corojo 99. It’s not crazy detailed, but it may be of use.
This is one of the (rare) indoor grow blogs in the forum. Very thorough.
fairtradetobacco.com
Indoor grow tent! Swedish snus variety Tofta!
Hi there! I am an indoor and outdoor grower, this is my third indoor grow the last three years. I have improved my ways a couple of times. Currently I have twelve tobacco plants of variety Tofta, it is an old swedish variety for snus, cigar and pipe tobacco. It is unclear how it came to Sweden...
@johnny108 has some decent examples of hydroponic tobacco. It seems to work well although I’m not sure if it’s any better or worse than regular soil. I guess like you said there’s a bunch of different factors that go into how the tobacco develops.
Hydroponic tobacco works very well.
However- curing the resulting big leaf is hit-or-miss. Xanthi last year cured easily.
The Kentucky dark I grew this year failed utterly, probably due to giving it a fresh full strength nutrient solution as it was topped. This did, however make a remarkably large leaf that would have been excellent as a candela wrapper.
I’m doing it again this year with Aztec and One Sucker. The One Sucker is ripening nicely, and the Aztec is still in the growth stage. Aztec is notorious for being difficult to cure, anyway, but I’ve had good luck with sun curing.
However- curing the resulting big leaf is hit-or-miss. Xanthi last year cured easily.
The Kentucky dark I grew this year failed utterly, probably due to giving it a fresh full strength nutrient solution as it was topped. This did, however make a remarkably large leaf that would have been excellent as a candela wrapper.
I’m doing it again this year with Aztec and One Sucker. The One Sucker is ripening nicely, and the Aztec is still in the growth stage. Aztec is notorious for being difficult to cure, anyway, but I’ve had good luck with sun curing.
Huffen'Snuff
Well-Known Member
I would say it may be worth it if you don't have to pay for the light. If you had to use electric to run lights it would be way cheaper to buy the tobacco.
Now if you were mega rich and was only concerned with trying to lengthen your life span, I think it would be worth it if you couldn't buy tobacco without chemicals on it.
I think I am only going to grow outdoors, and supplement my harvest by getting raw whole leaf, as an agricultural commodity, without the the taxes that they charge for the chemicals that they spray on the tobacco.
Now if you were mega rich and was only concerned with trying to lengthen your life span, I think it would be worth it if you couldn't buy tobacco without chemicals on it.
I think I am only going to grow outdoors, and supplement my harvest by getting raw whole leaf, as an agricultural commodity, without the the taxes that they charge for the chemicals that they spray on the tobacco.
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