PressuredLeaf
Well-Known Member
In 2021 my tobacco plants grew extremely well, but I messed up on a few key points:
1. soil
2. harvesting
3. curing
1.My native soil was low in chloride, but I added 8yds of local compost to amend my soil. The compost made from local green waste is pretty salty, so I believe this lead to excess chloride in my tobacco. This let to essentially "fireproof" tobacco that wouldn't smolder.
2. I believe I was harvesting a tad too early given my arid climate. This year I am going to wait to the point of "overripe" to give the best chances of curing properly.
3. Curing, I believe my leaves also dried out way to quickly and this did not allow for proper breakdown of the albumins in the leaf - also contributing to poor burning.
So what's different this year? No compost additions. I am topdressing the tobacco rows with a small amount of magnesium sulfate and potassium nitrate. Mg is said to promote a white ash ( and my soil is fairly low in Mg), while Potassium is said to aid in the combustion of the leaf, while the nitrate provides some immediately available nitrogen for good growth. Interestingly enough, I've read one article that mentioned excess sulfate can impede tobacco burning as well ( bad if true because I added a boat load of sulfur last year to reduce the pH), however another article mentioned that sulfate uptake was self limiting, I guess I'll find out!
Im growing about 15 Corojo and about 15-20 little Dutch, along with some unknown seedlings that popped up in my garden over winter.
1. soil
2. harvesting
3. curing
1.My native soil was low in chloride, but I added 8yds of local compost to amend my soil. The compost made from local green waste is pretty salty, so I believe this lead to excess chloride in my tobacco. This let to essentially "fireproof" tobacco that wouldn't smolder.
2. I believe I was harvesting a tad too early given my arid climate. This year I am going to wait to the point of "overripe" to give the best chances of curing properly.
3. Curing, I believe my leaves also dried out way to quickly and this did not allow for proper breakdown of the albumins in the leaf - also contributing to poor burning.
So what's different this year? No compost additions. I am topdressing the tobacco rows with a small amount of magnesium sulfate and potassium nitrate. Mg is said to promote a white ash ( and my soil is fairly low in Mg), while Potassium is said to aid in the combustion of the leaf, while the nitrate provides some immediately available nitrogen for good growth. Interestingly enough, I've read one article that mentioned excess sulfate can impede tobacco burning as well ( bad if true because I added a boat load of sulfur last year to reduce the pH), however another article mentioned that sulfate uptake was self limiting, I guess I'll find out!
Im growing about 15 Corojo and about 15-20 little Dutch, along with some unknown seedlings that popped up in my garden over winter.