Just for reference, I am 6 days into a late season run, and just now yellow enough to begin wilt.
Under normal circumstances (and yes, presumably they will come again) this would give me hope. But disaster has struck....
Many years ago, I went to a Chinese psychic who advised that my life was always going to be affected by water. Funnily enough, I have always lived within 5 minutes or less of the ocean. I have been flooded in my house in NY once (4 feet inside - an interesting experience). Here, while the sea has not as yet come into the house, it has broken its banks a number of times so that the road and fields are flooded, and I am unable to get beyond my gate, sometimes for a week or more. An example, just to keep my thread amusing:
In any event, this morning I go up to the shed with the blanket. The stat is at 46C - it's 87% humidity. I decide to bite the bullet and open the container to get to the crockpot and put it on high. In retrospect, thank goodness I did, otherwise I would be struggling with this run for months. The bottom of the freezer was covered in about an inch of water - so much so that I actually had to mop it out, literally. Through scientific analysis, I have come to the conclusion that my water intake system was not working efficiently - water that I was pouring down the tube was overshooting the crockpot and dumping on the floor. Not only was it a mess, but I would think that, as the crockpot wasn't heating the water that was on the floor, no one (myself included) was really getting the benefit of this added water, either. While everything was in disarray, I took a couple of photos - normally these are the ones you hide somewhere so that no one ever sees them. I'm posting the result of my current effort:
Yummy looking!! It appears that the Chinese lady was right - once again, water has been my nemesis. This isn't even candela wrapper....
I'm going to bring this run to a close, by drying them out during the day, just for the heck of it. And then start again, after I revise my water intake system, so that this doesn't happen again
Now, yes, I understand that much of my difficulty is because I am using unripe leaves. Of course, there is always the possibility that none of my leaves will be sufficiently ripe for this process, as we are already into the middle of October. On paper, I'm assuming that this means that it will take longer for the leaves to yellow - and on paper, this means that you hold at the yellowing stage until they are sufficiently colored. But, as usual, I have a few questions.
After all this time (these leaves were in the yellowing stage for a week), why is the midrib still completely green? I have a internet 'friend' in England who is following this thread (and doing this himself) and he has been removing the midribs prior to curing, for some reason. Actually, this allows him to go through this process in about 3 days or so. I have been arguing against such a practice, but now I wonder. Would that be a feasible option for future runs with unripe leaves - it seems that most of the midribs in my current run remained green, even after 6 days of yellowing. I understand that this would be somewhat work intensive, to remove the midribs in most of my leaves, but I wonder if this would assist in the 'speed' or success of getting unripe leaves to yellow.
How long does it normally take a tobacco plant to ripen?? My plants were put into the tunnel on August 4, and today they look like this:
None of them are yellowing in any way. About 11 or so have been topped for a couple of weeks already...Eck.
(By the way, from the above photo, is it possible to confirm that these really are Virginia plants????
I can't get to my crockpot on this run with all the leaves in the chamber, but will definitely turn it up to high on the next one, and use blankets earlier on, as well. Yes, that's a good point that most of what I'm reading here takes place in heated/insulated areas. Makes for more comfortable viewing, too. I have to walk uphill about 50 feet to get to my shed - dark, cold, etc. On the plus side, all this activity has allowed me to double up on my chocolate chip cookies without gaining any weight. A silver lining.....
