Anybody growing tobacco this year?

[stag15]

I've started my plants nice and early, but i'm way up north so they need the extra house time.
I'm trying Delgold, Kentucky Burley, Rustica, and some Virginia this year.

I'm planning on making some nice pipe blends and try my hand at some Swedish style snus.

Any tips or homegrown baccy' stories you'd like to share?

[waksupi]

It grows like a weed! ;o)
I've not started any yet. In this area it is always well matured before first frost, so I am going to try some direct planting in the garden this spring.

[SSGOldfart]

Don't crowd it,set your transplants after the last frost in spring and plan to have it in the barn before your 1st frost in the fall,also allow 3 days for it to start curing after you cut and spud it onto tobacco sticks leave it in the field under full sun, I guess it depends on how your planning to cure it.

You might want to bag the head after a bloom starts if you plan to save seed for next year.I also topped when we pulled the last suckers out,my dad was bad news for them weeds and suckers,I guess the most I can remember rising little over 5 acres,we used a mule.and a hoe,didn't have a tractor then

[KYCaster]

Being small and agile, I always ended up on the top tier in the barn....

....Probably what fried my brain.

Jerry

[Gofaaast]

Keep your plants fed well throughout the growing season and add some stove ashes to your soil before you set them out. Keep the suckers pinched off every few days and don't be afraid to stake your plants when they get big use cut up T-shirts for ties . Only let a couple flower out and mature to get seeds from, cut the flower off the rest before or after they bloom. I always let them bloom as some are quite colorful. Harvest the bottom leaves as they mature if you want to get a little more yield vs harvesting the whole plant one time. Grasshoppers love tobacco, so you have to battle them if you have them. I grew some awsome tobacco when I lived in northern NE in town with no grasshoppers. Almost every leave was wrapper quality. Back home in KS the grasshoppers were a pain and you had to use netting to keep them out if you wanted more than a 50% yield without spraying. Hail and or heavy wind are your biggest threats, disease problems not so much. Once in a while I would get a black stalk, I just removed the plant and dried it then. Slugs if I remember correctly caused a few issues one year it was wet most of the growing season. I enjoyed growing it and gave most of it away. I am a snuff guy and never have found a good recipe I like. I would make a few cigars with the Havana and some chewing tobacco and call it a year. I have very fertile soil were I live now and should grow some again.

[rancher1913]

does anybody have a few spare seeds, we would like to learn to grow some but haven't found a source for seeds.

[DerekP Houston]

does anybody have a few spare seeds, we would like to learn to grow some but haven't found a source for seeds.

http://www.victoryseeds.com/tobacco.html

I've used them before for different vegetables, but they show tobacco in stock.

[stag15]

I bought all my seeds on Ebay. The seller is Spicy Acres, and they are great to deal with. They only do non-gmo and the seeds were grown in Canada, so the strains should be somewhat acclimated to cooler climates for those up north.

[rancher1913]

thanks

[DLCTEX]

The advice to add ashes is not valid for those of us who have alkaline soils. We have to add sulfer to lower the ph of the soil.

[Bullwolf]

I didn't set out intentionally to grow tobacco this year, but I had a lone Burley plant come up from my compost when I planted some Sun-Chokes. (Jerusalem artichokes) So sort of yes, and no.

This years compost pile tobacco plant.


The compost pile survivor grew through the winter, and burst into flower early in the cold, so it did not grow very large at all, but it was more accidental than planned.


Typically Burley can make 6-7 feet easy (and they become hard to deal with) I ordinary top a plant before it gets that large for convenience sake and ease of handling. The seed in my compost was likely from this guy when I composted what wasn't used back in 2010. I didn't think the seed would be quite so durable through the heat and composting process, not to mention 5 years or so. Normally only my tomato seeds survive through that.



Few more tobacco pics. Stalk curing some Burley



Here's a Native Rustica tobacco plant flowering, from back in 2010. Rustica flowers are so fragrant!


And from 2011 Ottoman H.Y. next to some heirloom Silver River, which I have bagged for seed.


One primed Silver River leaf.


Some ripening Havana 142 leaf, also from 2011


I've been growing more food lately, than tobacco. So no starts for me this year.



Here's my old bathtub nursery, before hardening the tobacco starts outdoors.








- Bullwolf

[Finster101]

I want no part of it. I topped, suckered and cut way to much of it growing up in Kentucky.

[1911sw45]

Amen to that Finster101!

[RPRNY]

Burley and Virginia require remarkably different soils and climate. They will not grow well in the same. And while you can grow poor Virginia in soils and climate that Burley does well in, Burley won't make it in good Virginia soil/climate.

Suggest you pick the variety likely to work best for what you've got.

[Moonie]

I've never grown any but I hear it grows well here lol