Leverhead's 2019 Grow

[leverhead]

It's been a few years, I'm ready to grow some tobacco. This year will be all Turkish varieties.

Adiyaman 100
Bafra 52
Balikesir 50
Bitlis 100
Celikhan 100
Duzce 50
Izmir 200
Prilep P66-9/7 68
Samsun Black Sea 45
Samsun Canik 75
Samsun Maden 75
Tasova 76
Trabzon 50
Xanthi 68

Total about 1100 plants, a very large number of leaves. Sun-curing will be the focus, I hope the the weather behaves itself.

 

[DGBAMA]

Sounds fun.....except the planting part....good to see you. Ive been away a couple years too.

 

[GreenDragon]

Looks like a great grow. Best of luck! Here’s hoping for a mild summer.

 

[deluxestogie]

Wow! You'll be speaking Turkish before you know it. And maybe Greek and Macedonian as well. What a delightful selection, and an ambitious crop. I would look at sun-curing on the stalk-harvested plant for as many as you can get away with. I've never tried that with the Samsun/Bafra/Trabzon family, but the Basma types seem to do well that way, and with a lot less labor than priming.

Bob

 

[Charly]

A lot of different orientals ! It will be cool to follow your grow log !
Good luck with soooo many plants !

 

[greenmonster714]

Looks like a grand plan. Definitely going to follow this thread. Hope ya post tons of pics. Good luck

 

[leverhead]

I think that I'll stick to the local dialect of English, even though I have enough trouble that. If I get the normal warm weather through September, the harvest should be smokeable by the holidays. Maybe smoking like a Turk would be a likely outcome. Istanbulin posted a couple of old Turkish blends that I started building my variety list around, the rest sound interesting enough grow.

I'm going to try to prime and string these. If it gets ahead of me, more drastic measures may be called for. Otherwise, setting aside a few for stalk harvest would make an interesting twist. That whole apples and apples thing.

Anyone care to take a guess at the leaf count?

 

[jParnell]

Anyone care to take a guess at the leaf count?

I'm gonna guess 30,492.5 leaves after last priming.

 

[leverhead]

LOL, you're all set for the for the horn worms! I'll let this run until tomorrow morning, the real count at the end will be a while.

 

[CobGuy]

Heck of a grow ... good luck!

~Darin

 

[GreenDragon]

If you need any help sampling the crop, I'm nearby in Austin...

 

[drinkthekoolaid]

Anyone care to take a guess at the leaf count?

17,600

 

[Traveling Piper]

Pretty damn jealous of this patch.

 

[CobGuy]

27,500

 

[leverhead]

If I average the guesses of jParnell and drinkthecoolaid, I get 24046 leaves. Remarkably close to the number that I came up with 22812, the real number probably won't ever be known.

I've figured 30 hours, spread out over many weeks to prime all the leaves. Easier at the beginning and end, hectic in the middle.

 

[deluxestogie]

What I have done in the past, and continue to do with each grow, is to document a typical leaf count for each variety. I don't count all the leaves and divide by the number of plants--aaah! I just pick out a couple of typical looking plants, and count all their leaves (excluding the two bottom leaves).

Your grow this year is an ideal opportunity to document comparison leaf counts among those many varieties. I've grown 10 of them, and have my own CLASSIFIED SECRET leaf counts.

Bob

 

[leverhead]

LOL! We again find ourselves on two different sides of a rusty chain link fence! I cannot allow a leaf count gap!

Leaf count information and yield is on my to do list. Soil test, even though I don't intend to fertilize. Information from reliable sources has got me investigating alternative planting and harvest options.

I'm still telling myself that this is going to be fun.

 

[deluxestogie]

Just think of the joy of scanning over all those bags of finished leaf, deciding which one to try today, which ones to kiln for further aging, and which ones to just allow to sit.

For a typical home grower, by the time he or she has figured out which varieties are wonderful, and should be planted again, there is none of it left to enjoy.

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

Have you started your seeds yet? I did mine last weekend.

 

[leverhead]

This will be my first time growing Prilep. I had some WLT Prilep that brought a fuller flavor to my cold weather smokes, I like a fuller flavor cigarette in the cold weather. The Izmir and Bitlis, both WLT and home grown are always a pleasant additions to a blend. The fun does last for years!