I have a question to the last picture and the yellow. Could that be potassium deficencies? My considerations, the lower foliage ist yellowed, mottling of the leaf margin, the edge curls in and downward. I am nosy for your answers.
Saintanthonysfire grow log 2022
- Thread starter Saintanthonysfire
- Start date
The last picture is labeled "Harrow Velvet", which is a white stem burley variety. They always show yellow in the lower leaves as the season progresses.
Bob
Bob
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Yeah I had the same concern, it’s been slightly yellow since I transplanted and as the season progresses. I figured if there was a deficiency it would pop up in more than just the very center row and only one variant. Luckily this place seems to have all the answers!
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
I transplanted on may 15th and I think I could harvest the harrow, little Dutch, and maybe the Connecticut broadleaf this evening. Here are some pics what do y’all think? The harrow is almost completely yellow, and the little Dutch and broadleaf are starting to wilt over a bit. The Order of photos is broadleaf, little Dutch and harrow velvet,
Alpine
Moderator
The HV is ready for stalk curing, the broadleaf is at optimum stage for cigar leaf harvest, I’d give the little Dutch a few more days. Wonderful leaves you have there!
pier
pier
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the reply. Going out tomorrow to do some harvesting. When you say cigar leaf harvest, is that breaking off the individual leaves and hanging them?
Alpine
Moderator
Not exactly. Cigar leaf wrappers and binders are usually harvested at the mature stage (like your broadleaf) rather than ripe (like your HV).
Harvesting two or three leaves per plant and subsequently hang them is a lot more work than simply stalk cure the whole plant, but the single leaf method guarantees that all leaves are picked at the same stage of maturity (or ripeness) while for stalk curing you have to compromise: bottom leaves ripe-ripe, mid leaves mature-to-ripe and top leaves mature.
I wrote “cigar leaf harvest” because I supposed your broadleaf is for cigar making, if the intended use is smokeless or cigarettes, you can wait a week or two more.
Harvesting two or three leaves per plant and subsequently hang them is a lot more work than simply stalk cure the whole plant, but the single leaf method guarantees that all leaves are picked at the same stage of maturity (or ripeness) while for stalk curing you have to compromise: bottom leaves ripe-ripe, mid leaves mature-to-ripe and top leaves mature.
I wrote “cigar leaf harvest” because I supposed your broadleaf is for cigar making, if the intended use is smokeless or cigarettes, you can wait a week or two more.
furryfreek
Well-Known Member
I stalk-harvested some of my Little Dutch a few days ago at just about the stage yours are at and they all seem to be coloring up nicely. I do think they'd probably benefit from a bit more time in the ground, though. I only picked some of mine a bit early because of rogue animals, whose random acts of vandalism seem to uncannily strike leaves the worst when they're just almost ready to harvest.
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Ah ok, that makes sense. Just finished harvesting the harrow and most of the broadleaf. Going to harvest a few more tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
That’s wild. I only ever had pest problems when the plants were young. Last year I lost over half of my plants in the first few weeks to rabbits. This year I enclosed them in chicken wire staked down every 6 inches. I only lost 1 plant. Also these little Dutch are so odd. Idk if I’ll plant them again, they are kind of a pain lol. Tons of sucker growth, close leaf spacing, and now that they are matured it’s like they are just collapsing over on themselves. Going to be a pain to do the final prune and cut.
furryfreek
Well-Known Member
Oh, the animals I speak of are ostensibly domesticated. We have guinea pigs that occasionally escape their pens and like to congregate under the shade of my baccy plants, running around and busting my lugs. Our own two dogs know the area's off-limits and generally pay heed but the same can't be said of a friend's manic, spatially unaware collie-cross we looked after recently.
I wouldn't write off the Little Dutch just yet. It may be a bit more awkward while growing but I've found it remarkably forgiving post-harvest and the end product is well worth it, IMO. I can relate to all those complaints myself and read of them in many other peoples' grow logs yet a lot of folks nonetheless continue plant it year after year.
I wouldn't write off the Little Dutch just yet. It may be a bit more awkward while growing but I've found it remarkably forgiving post-harvest and the end product is well worth it, IMO. I can relate to all those complaints myself and read of them in many other peoples' grow logs yet a lot of folks nonetheless continue plant it year after year.
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Having only grown two years and losing half of last year to rabbits and also having my first crop going to snus, i haven’t actually tried anything yet. I’ve been pretty much judging the plants on ease of maintenance and overall appearance. Which will prolly change after this year when I actually ferment, pasteurize, and try the plants.
This is why I love harrow velvet at this stage. It grows so uniform, hardly a sucker, super easy to hang, and cures naturally way faster than the rest. This could all change when I actually try the final product. I’ve heard great things about little Dutch.
After researching on this site I found there are a ton more pa variants both broadleaf/seedleaf than I realized. So next year I may go with an all Pennsylvania crop. Cuz I’m kind of a sucker for that type of thing lol.
- PA Red
- Long Red
- Lancaster Seedleaf
- Swarr-Hibshman
- Glessnor
- Little Dutch
- Pennbel
- Ohio (oops!) Dutch
Bob
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Thanks again Bob for the useful information. Will probably pick three of those to go along with the PA Red for next season. I plan on doing the PA red for a third season. Love how uniform it grows, large leaves, not many suckers and it dries to a very pretty color.
Only issue I have with it, has been how dang long it takes to mature. I’ve grown around 10 different kinds over the last two years and pa red has been the slowest growing by a large margin. Last year I noticed that the only issue I had when drying was hanging too late in the year, when the temp drops and relative humidity goes down with it. I had plants that dried too fast and the top leaves still had a slight green tint. I doubt I’ll run into that this year but it makes me a bit nervous how far behind the rest it is.
Days to maturation for any given variety vary by about 25% from year to year. So a 60 day maturation is usually earlier than a variety with an 80 day maturation, and usually later than a variety with a 40 day maturation, but not consistently. We should probably just go with "early", "mid" and "late," for maturation terms. In the ARS-GRIN database, most varieties report maturation data from only one or two (contract) growers. But some varieties have data from 3 or 4 grows. These latter demonstrate the wide variation. I've had 50 day maturation on varieties that @skychaser needs 80 days for in the Northwest. So I would worry only about varieties that report extraordinarily high days to maturation, like 110.
Acclimation is not usually an issue for any tobacco variety. Most tobacco varieties will grow well in Alberta, Wisconsin, Virginia, the highlands of Peru and in Nepal. For sure, different weather during the growing season will produce different results—even with the same variety in the same plot of dirt. Same with the weather during any "curing season." Making seed is solely dependent on the number of days between last frost and first frost.
Bob
Acclimation is not usually an issue for any tobacco variety. Most tobacco varieties will grow well in Alberta, Wisconsin, Virginia, the highlands of Peru and in Nepal. For sure, different weather during the growing season will produce different results—even with the same variety in the same plot of dirt. Same with the weather during any "curing season." Making seed is solely dependent on the number of days between last frost and first frost.
Bob
skychaser
Well-Known Member
Tobacco horn worms will have long white stripes like a cigarette. Tomato horn worms will have V shaped stripes. They come from different species of Sphinx moths. There are over 1450 species known world wide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphingidae The only one I have ever seen here is the White Lined Sphinx moth. I was watching a pair of them feeding on Petunias at dusk last night. They have never caused any harm to any of my plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-lined_Sphinx These are tobacco horn worms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_hornworm
skychaser
Well-Known Member
As Bob said, white stemmed Burleys will yellow from the bottom up and are often nearly fully yellowed by the time they are ready to harvest. Harrow Velvet, Golden Burley, TN86, TN90, Blue Star 100, Burley 64, Sobolchskii and several other white stemmed Burleys are like this making them virtually no brainers to color cure. Stalk curing is the norm for these but when primed it can make some really beautiful bright yellow leaf.
Some white stemmed Burleys can be very slow starters and look very anemic and yellow like they are lacking nutrients right from the start. Harrow Velvet often looks this way in the first weeks. But then it gets rolling along and grows at a rate similar to other tobaccos. Several years ago I did some very large grows of Harrow Velvet. It is one of my personal favorites. I had over 200 plants and selected 20 for seed stock and selected only plants with no suckers and good uniformity. I repeated this again with another 200 selecting only 20 suckerless plants. I have only selected plants with good uniformity and no suckers from every grow I save seed from seed since. It paid off. You will rarely ever see suckers on plants from my Harrow Velvet seed now and they tend to be very consistent in every way. .
Maturity is considered as being when 50% of the plants in a grow have flowered. But ripeness may still be a ways off. Time to maturity also varies from season to season due to different weather conditions. And it varies by location. In order to get an accurate average time to maturity several grows need to be averaged out and also be compared to grows from other regions. I may grow it one season and have 50% blooming in 60 days. The next year it may be 75 days. So it can be a tough one to pin down. Oriental strains run all across the scale when it comes to leaf color being from light to dark, overall size, early to late in maturity and early to late in ripeness. There is really no rule of thumb for them, even in related strains. I am growing both Samsun. (aka black sea samsun) and Samsun Maden this year. The Maden has very light colored leaves and is a very fast grower that reaches maturity much sooner than Samsun. My 40+ plants are all 6' or more in height now and every plant has been bagged in under 60 days from planting out. The Samsun is much darker with denser packed leaves and has just reached about 4' in height. And it blooms much later. I bagged the first 6 of 40 plants this week at 60 days from planting.
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
All great information, clears up some questions I had about what maturity actually is. After bobs post, I went back and actually counted out the days from transplant to harvest and was coming up with a number way higher than what I read online. Most of what I grew was 45-55 days and I harvested most plants at around 75. Knowing that maturity is 50% have flowered, it lines up better with the timeline. Ive been picking off buds and flowers from as early as late June early July.
Love the info on the harrow velvet. It’s a beautiful plant in every way. From how easy it is to maintane in the garden to how easy and fast it is to hang and dry. All the leaves are uniform, and also pliable so the wind, rain and garden traffic never cracks or damages them, like the thicker more rigid Connecticut broadleaf I grew. It’s also probably the most aromatic leaf I grew last year. Had one planted at the house and hung in greenhouse for past year and I can smell it everytime I walk it. A very sweet caramelly note.
Saintanthonysfire
Well-Known Member
Thanks to the advice on this board I was able to get some BT and spray my plants down every week or two. I’ve only seen two tiny hornworms all season. That being said, I talked to a friend who said they had a hell of a time with tomato worms last season but haven’t seen one this year. So now I’m wondering if it was the BT or maybe just a down year in general for the hornworm.
I’ve done a lot of research on hornworms both tomatoe and tobacco and it says that each can and will eat plants of the nightshade family. So I just couldn’t figure out why they didn’t migrate to the tomatoes. I do know that they imprint on the first thing they eat and won’t eat any other type of food after. So I assume the moth only laid her eggs on the tobacco plants and that’s what they imprinted on.
But if I was a moth I would have totally layed my eggs on the much more plentiful nightshade plant 5 feet away aka the tomatoes lol.
