Sumba Grow Log

[Leftynick]

By the way, my guess is that Leftynick can tell you more about Malay smoking tobacco in corn husk.

View attachment 19794

Sorry, just noticed this. Can't help you on explaining this. Malaysian does not use corn husk, we use nipa palm (mangrove palm) leaves to smoke tobacco. It is almost the same size as your corn husk picture but we don't tie it, just roll it into cone shape and put just a little tobacco in it. That is why the tobacco is very strong. However, i never liked the taste of the leaves. The smoke from leave itself overpower the tobacco taste. That's why i use paper to roll my cigarette. Also using paper is easier and i can add filter. The leave also has one disadvantage, it can dry, and cause splitting of the leaves. Whenever I buy it, I have to throw more than half unusable leaves. Dont have this problem with paper.


this is an example of nipa palm leaves sold for cigarette. Pic from internet

 

[Tutu]

As of today I've sown all four Sumba varieties. Let's see where it takes me!

 

[Alpine]

Good luck with your grow! How are the Nostrano and rusticas doing Tutu?

pier

 

[Tutu]

They died. Again. But I've planted them once more. The Rustica are outside now underneath a few seedling locust trees that provide shadow. Photos will follow in the Tutu blog. I am really desperate to get some Nostrano and some Rustica's growing

 

[Alpine]

Keep on trying, I'm sure you'll figure out a way to do it right. Plenty of seeds here if you need some more!

pier

 

[Charly]

Amazing how difficult it can be to grow seeds from different places !
Anton, your seeds from Indonesia (Besuki, Kasturi and Maesan Samporis) grew quite small in France whereas seeds from locations with more similar conditions (Italy, Belgium, Slovenia, United States...) did well.
I wonder how many generations it might take for the strains to acclimate themself...

P.S. Nostrano seems quite happy in my garden (thank you Pier), I am eager to see how it will smoke !!!

 

[Alpine]

I plan to grow Kasturi next year, and try a side-by-side grow of Md609, Amersfoorst and Catterton (to see if Amersfoort is truly some kind of ancient Maryland type tobacco) but hearing all the troubles some forum members have in growing "exotic" strains (Nostrano in Indonesia or Kasturi in France for example) makes me mumbling on how to start the seeds properly... oh well, I got 6 months of winter to think about it!

pier

As a side (sad!) note it was 3*C this morning... for our imperial friends, 37.4*F

 

[deluxestogie]

I wonder how many generations it might take for the strains to acclimate themself...

Perhaps as little as one generation, two at most.

Bob

 

[Leftynick]

Perhaps as little as one generation, two at most.

Bob

I can confirm this. My Samsun 85 are very difficult to start when I bought them. But the next generation started very easy.

 

[Charly]

Perhaps as little as one generation, two at most.

Bob

I did not plan on harvesting the seeds from these strains at first, since the plants and the leaves were small.
But if they can acclimate so fast, I will harvest and see what they will do next year

 

[Bex]

I agree that it could be as little as one generation - I have found that with my vegetables, grown from my own seed, as well. In the meantime, the Amersfoort is doing extremely well in Ireland, despite a horrid summer, torrential wind and rain, temps never getting past 60F, etc..


The leaves are over two feet long, as seen in the photo. The plants themselves are only about 5 feet high or so - I've had to stake many of them, as, despite being in the most 'sheltered' part of my garden, they've been hit with 30+mph winds occasionally this 'summer'. None of the bottom leaves have yet shown any sign of yellowing, on the plant, even though the flowers came out about 6 or more weeks ago. While I'm usually about 2 weeks behind inland growth in my area, it's been a strange summer......