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Wooda's first grow, 2017

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wooda2008

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Bug topped Rustica. Little Rusty has since recovered.
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Mr Slugmuncher moved in to take care of the pests
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More time passed, and the plants grew.
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wooda2008

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And here's the latest photos from last week, before we got sunshine. My size 9 foot for scale.
Rustica20170629_175528[1].jpg YTB20170629_175550[1].jpg Silver River20170629_175539[1].jpg
 

wooda2008

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I also started some cornplanter rustica from an Abenaki friend. Started with a 72 cell starter tray and grew extras loose in an aluminum foil pan to replace when one died. Transplanted last week and most survived.

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wooda2008

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20170626_191429[1].jpg 20170629_175708[1].jpg 20170629_175715[1].jpg

Aaaannnd that catches us up on pictures. Yesterday I noticed one of the Olson 68 Rustica had a flower bud starting.
 

wooda2008

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I was wrong about the rustica budding. Just another set of leaves.

Most recent pics from 2 days ago:

Rustica.jpg YTB.jpg silverriver.jpg
 

wooda2008

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A question for all the more experienced growers: Does this look like the start of a flower stalk?

flower.jpg

I've been removing suckers every day on the Olson 68 Rustica plants. No suckers have started on the SR or YTB.
 

wooda2008

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The cornplanter has lost about 50% of the seedlings to sun scorch, drowning or being pulled up by a curious crow depending on their planting location, but that still leaves me with ~2 dozen plants scattered around the property. They're not doing well in the mulch bed next to the house with 50% sun, but they're growing just fine on the ends of the garden beds.

cornplanter.jpg
Children help with perspective. My spawn knows not to touch.
20170714_182521.jpg

And here's little Rusty, plugging away.
rusty2.jpg
 

wooda2008

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Aphids have infested my Yellow Twist Bud!

Spinosad didn't touch them. Neem oil did nothing. Soapy water made them hiccup a little.
aphids.jpg
Interestingly, the aphids wanted nothing to do with the Olson 68 or the Silver River...
 

wooda2008

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In other news, the plants have started to send up flower buds. I'm bagging all of the Olson plants to be able to send a ton of seed to @BigBonner

olson68flower.jpg

Lastly for this update, the Cornplanter I got from a local friend is well established in the garden. I'm not going to sucker these in the hopes that I will get more leaves. These will be for ceremony, so I don't need big huge leaves to make impressively large hands.

abenakicornplanter.jpg

Thanks for following,

Wooda
 

SmokesAhoy

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Without topping/suckering your rustica will have a tiny fraction of the alkaloids rustica is famed for, fyi.
 

wooda2008

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Without topping/suckering your rustica will have a tiny fraction of the alkaloids rustica is famed for, fyi.
This row is for seed and ceremony; I don't necessarily want to have an N hammer when using this for prayer.

I'll probably top the next row and do a comparison.
 

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For n hammer: top and keep suckered. Try to go a full 60 days after topping before you harvest. Everything at once. Color cure and store some and kiln the rest. Color cured is stronger, kilned is better tasting/aroma.
 

deluxestogie

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Try to go a full 60 days after topping before you harvest. Everything at once.
Maybe my much earlier harvesting is why I found Sacred Cornplanter to be difficult to cure, and awful to smoke after color-curing, after kilning, and even after a subsequent Cavendish process. It was just horrible. I guess I was working with leaf that was far too immature. The Cornplanter blossoms were actually better than the leaf.

It's been lost in storage for years now. Perhaps time has improved it. I'll have to do some searching.

Wooda, save all those blossoms, and give it a try. Buffalo Bird Woman's diary describes the old men smoking the blossoms (N. quadrivalvis) after stirring them in some melted buffalo fat. [http://www.bettercodger.com/images/Buffalo Bird Woman - Tobacco Garden.pdf]

Bob
 

wooda2008

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For n hammer: top and keep suckered. Try to go a full 60 days after topping before you harvest. Everything at once. Color cure and store some and kiln the rest. Color cured is stronger, kilned is better tasting/aroma.

To clarify: by color cure you mean controlled temp and humidity until brown, yes?
 

wooda2008

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Maybe my much earlier harvesting is why I found Sacred Cornplanter to be difficult to cure, and awful to smoke after color-curing, after kilning, and even after a subsequent Cavendish process. It was just horrible. I guess I was working with leaf that was far too immature. The Cornplanter blossoms were actually better than the leaf.

It's been lost in storage for years now. Perhaps time has improved it. I'll have to do some searching.

Wooda, save all those blossoms, and give it a try. Buffalo Bird Woman's diary describes the old men smoking the blossoms (N. quadrivalvis) after stirring them in some melted buffalo fat. [http://www.bettercodger.com/images/Buffalo Bird Woman - Tobacco Garden.pdf]

Bob

I'll give that a try too. should have more than enough blossoms to play with.
 

SmokesAhoy

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Rustica favors regular irrigation and cooler temps for growth and alkaloid production based on research I've read, and in my limited experience growing it I would tend to agree. 60 days post top leaves my plants too potent, I tried smoking a comparatively low alkaloid rustica in a pipe and it was just obnoxious. Too big a snus and say hello to the last thing i ate. Nothing pleasant about getting alkaloids too high. This year I'm growing strains that have been measured to easily get to over 9% and in the case of Olson 68 higher still. I don't know why, I try to keep my tolerance low after realizing there is zero benefit to high nicotine strains and the flavor always pales to the same thing without so much nicotine but every year I can't help myself and plant rustica again even though I hardly ever use it in anything. I guess I just enjoy growing it. It has it's own set of quirks not seen in common tobacco.

Rustica laughs off moderate freezes at the end of the season and grows very well here, but as always color curing is the only difficulty. I never have to worry about it yellowing and curing as you say on the plant. No pests as long as aphids are controlled, just color curing.

When I first started growing I thought my area too temperate to yield any strong tobacco. I simply harvested too early.
 
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