Photo of my tobacco - OldDinosaur

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Again, just personally, I'm more concerned with disease propagation than I am insects. I have a limited space to grow on. Some of theses diseases, once they get started, are in the soil permanently, and you are out of the tobacco growing hobby equally permanently. Insects, I can deal with.

Although I do like your idea about adding an insecticide in with the compost. Maybe I'll do a small test patch. Thanks for the idea.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

The last of the seed heads are cut down. Top leaves from the seed plants are strung and hung. And the last plant is cut off and hung. It's probably a good thing as I'm running out of space to hang tobacco.



And the weather forecast is for 31 degrees overnight. I'll probably see a bunch of pretty sad looking sucker leaf in the morning.

According to the forecast we might even get some snow next weekend (Snow!...Already?...Ugh...) When mother nature changes her mind look out.

I still have 35 or 40 stumps left to dig up and discard. I guess that's what November is for. Turkey Day here we come. (That's Thanksgiving for those outside the US.)

Meanwhile, my kiln is humming away. So is my electric bill, ouch!

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

I'll probably see a bunch of pretty sad looking sucker leaf in the morning.

That plant with the yellow leaf looks nice.

My experience is that immature leaf (the floppy, green ones) are quite sensitive to frost, whereas nearly matured leaf is considerably more resistant. I suspect that the duration of the cold, as well as accompanying wind, both play a role in whether or not the leaf will be damaged.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

That one plant is very ripe, and now hanging upside down in my basement. As for sucker leaf, there isn't really anything left there. So if it dies no biggie. I'll miss watching my tobacco grow and mature, but there's always next year, and some new varieties to try out.

Wes H.

 

[Tutu]

I've always enjoyed seeing plants that have fully grown seed heads but not had their leafs harvested yet.

 

[greenmonster714]

Wes, is see things winding down for ya. I really like that small plot garden. It looks like you had a lot packed in there. I hope to do the same next year. I'm sure it will make things easier to manage. Just how close together do you plant on average? Like I said they looked packed in there but obviously they loved it. Very nice grow.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Tutu:

That one plant was a left over Gold Leaf 939 that didn't have a home. And I can't have lonely tobacco plants, so I stuck it in the ground and decided to just let it grow and see what it developed into. It turned into a very nice looking plant. There's not a lot of tobacco there, but it was just for fun anyway. I'm going to dry that nice symmetrical seed head and make a centerpiece for a dry floral arrangement out of it.

greenmonster714:

I planted everything on two foot centers, alternating the rows. Row one would plant on 0, 2, 4, 6 etc. foot centers. Row two would plant on 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. centers. Orchard style. I measured everything carefully with my 25 foot tape measure. When I was done planting, you could look down the corner and see the diagonals nice and straight. I also try to plant the tallest plants farthest from the sun so they won't shade the shorter varieties. I wasn't entirely successful in that venture, as I ended up with a couple of surprise varieties that ended up being much taller than the seed catalog described. What I thought were going to be 5 to 6 footers ended up being 8 and 7 footers. Also I do things differently than the tree fruit guys. I orient my rows east west vs. the normal north south. East west is less efficient sunlight (photosynthesis sunlight) wise. But East west will put more heat sunlight into the soil. A significant factor in our relatively cold climate. In Alabama, soil temp isn't as much of an issue, so north south is probably best.

I was able to cram about 230 plants into roughly 1,100 square feet. When they get big, it's hard to walk down the rows without breaking leaves. A side benefit is no weeds. It's way too dark down in there for weeds to grow.

And I use significant fertilizer. I split my applications into 3. At planting, and again two more times at about one month intervals. I shoot for 90-10-10-15 (N P K S) pounds per acre over the growing season. This is what I use for my local soils and climate. Yours would no doubt be different.



Sorry about the low quality photo, this was taken before i got my new digital camera. Photo taken July 6, 2017, and is illustrative of my east west diagonal plantings. Photo is looking due east. These plants have been in the ground for about 30 days.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I think Tutu and Leftynick have it the hardest when it comes to growing tobacco. Living in those tropical climates with the constant rain and unrelenting bugs and diseases have to make it tough. I'm lucky, I have really good soil and live in a dry climate. When I need rain, I fire up the sprinkler. I get mostly sunny weather, and the summers are relatively hot. All good conditions for growing tobacco. And it gets cold here in the winter which helps kill off all those annoying bugs. I can't complain too much, then I would have to be a farmer.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

The Halloween witch gave us a prehalloween fly by last night and dropped a deposit of frost. First of the season. My car sensor said 29, and the thermometer said 31. The weather prediction was pretty accurate. Well, the weather guys have got to get it right some of the time. What's left of my sucker leaf is looking a little singed around the edges this morning. It's still fairly early in the day here, so I'll wait 'till later to see if it is all dead or just singed. It will be interesting to see what the results are after it warms up. I know that tobacco will tolerate a certain amount of freezing, and I'm wondering if these kind of temperatures are fatal or not. Be that as it may, according to the weather prediction, it is supposed to be in the low 20's by the weekend. If my suckers survived last night, they definitely won't survive the weekend. That's okay though, as I've had a good year, and nature has been good to me.

I have about 35 stumps / bare plants left to dig up. After that I'm pretty well done with the outdoor phase of the tobacco season. But as the other experienced growers know, tobacco season is never really over. There's all that curing and kilning to do. And the finished goods to make up. The next thing you know it will be time to start seeds again. I planted my first seeds on February 21st last year. I'll probably do about the same next year. I'm looking forward to it, I will have several new varieties to try out.

All you growers in the Northern Hemisphere have a good winter, and all you growers in the Southern Hemisphere have a good growing season.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I've been surveying the frost damage, and it looks a whole lot like Bob has previously described. Photos attached.



Photo 1, closeup showing tender growing shoot starting to turn brown. You can see with your naked eye that the cell walls have burst due to the freezing.

Photo 2, more panoramic view of the same plant, older well developed leaves a little droopy, but still alive. Larger leaves have sustained hail damage a few weeks ago, hence the holes.

Photo 3, African Red top, the tender blooms have had it due to frost, the mature leaf below it still looks good.

Although it was below freezing, and we definitely got frost, the wind was very still, so no wind chill effect. Other than the active growing points, these plants survived a light freeze nearly intact. Pretty tough for a tropical plant.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

I see some fat pods on that African Red seed head. They might be worth saving.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I bagged one of this type. It is hanging in my basement. The rest are open-pollinated and pretty useless. African Red is a very productive type, making large numbers of seed heads per plant. I haven't counted, but each one of those stems easily has 100 pods on them, probably more than that. I'll send you some seed if you want it after my bagged one has dried. I should have large numbers of seeds. Certainly more than I and a hundred other people could ever use.

That comes with a caveat though. AR is very tall, eight feet or more, the stems are kind of skinny, and they need to be supported one way or another. Mine are leaning up against the fence. AR makes abundant (about 50) leaves per plant which are medium sized (14"-16") and very thin and fine veined. AR is also fairly high in nicotine at 2.97% When I have some leaf ready, I'm going to give a try at a few stogies and see if these would make decent wrappers. I've made a few (freehand) stogies in the past. They weren't very pretty, but they drew and burned well.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Thanks for the offer. My variety list for 2018 is already planned, and I'm out of beds for any more.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

(South) African Red photo attached.



There are 206 pods there. The proceeds from one bagged plant, plus one cured but not kilned leaf. The white paper background is 18" wide, so that will give a perspective on the size of the leaf. That leaf is one of the larger nicer specimens from my AR plants.

As part of my prep for seed pod curing, I stripped all extra vegetation and stems away. Dried flowers, and immature seed pods were also discarded. I put the cleaned proceeds back in the bag, and hang them up on a stick near the ceiling part of my basement where the humidity is usually no more than 50% They should be pretty well dried out in four to six weeks. Fortunately, no color curing is necessary!

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I guess the season really is over now. Photo attached.



A little early season snow. A "skiff" as we say around here. The temp was 31 and rising. The snow will be gone by noon. No other freezing weather in the 10 day forecast. Actually. I believe there is probably some living leaf left out there. Amazing given the lateness of the season. And the northerlyness of our latitude.

Wes H.

 

[Tutu]

I've never seen any snow-covered tobacco before. It looks nice and sad at the same time...

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I don't expect you get a lot of snow in Indonesia. Maybe on the highest mountain peaks during certain times of the year.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I checked, and the 31 degree weather and wet snow doesn't seem to have effected the tobacco. There is still living leaf out there, and the African Red actually looks pretty good, all things considered. I could go out there right now and pick leaves. Not that there is anything much out there. And I'm not real interested in slopping around in the mud!

Wes H.

 

[Tutu]

No there isn't any around here. None. It gets cold on top of some volcanoes but no snow. One of the reasons I'm here haha

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I read about a copper mine on one of the Indonesian Islands that operates at 17,000 feet. Some pretty thin air up there.