Anyone Planning on Growing their own?

Forum Index > Roll Your Own > Anyone Planning on Growing their own? > Post a New Reply

Share/Bookmark this Topic:

Message

Author

by libertarian99 on Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:02 pm

alist wrote:

I did not plant all of these this year. I presently have the following number of species seedlings, which are almost ready to go into the ground .

Is there a trick or secret for getting the plants from the germination stage to the ground-ready stage?

Last edited by libertarian99 on Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:49 pm; edited 1 time in total

libertarian99 Enthusiastic Smoker

Enthusiastic Smoker Joined: May 01, 2009 Posts: 453

by alist on Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:00 am

garhkal wrote:

For someone who prefers smoking Snomas, which seeds would you recommend?

I honestly don't know. I looked up Sonomas online and they appear to be a generic cigarette. Having never smoked them, I have no idea what they taste like. The additional problem is you have no way of knowing what flavorings have been added. You could target an American blend, which would involve a mixture of the three types of tobaccos, being Burley, Virginia and Turkish. The blending part would be up to you. In other words, you would mix up small amounts of those three varieties in different proportions (after harvesting, drying, curing and possibly even aging) until you found the blend that you prefer. If you have played around with ryo, you might have familiarity with the flavors of these tobaccos. If not, then you will have to experiment. I never messed much with burley, since it is the strongest of the three and I was a super ultralight smoker when I smoked. However, some prefer the burleys, particularly if they are toasted. (Was it Lucky Strikes that were toasted burley?) If you like Camels, you would blend in Turkish from 1/4 - 1/3 into your mix. If you like Marlboros, those are an American blend flavored with cocoa/chocolate. That's what gave them their particular flavor.

I was originally going to do only Virginia and Turkish, with the end goal of doing 1/4 Turkish to 3/4 Virginia, although the purists claim Turkish should always be at 1/3 of the blend, due to the burn rate. I personally always preferred Turkish at 1/4 particularly with a British Virginia. The lesson is, it all comes down to your personal tastes.

If you are starting out, I would begin with a Virginia, a Burley and a Turkish. A third of each might end up as an additive-free or natural Camel. Going towards an American Blend like Marlboros might involve 40% Burley, 40% Virginia and 20% Turkish. (Or maybe 30% Burley, 50% Virginia and 20% Turkish.) Generally, Turkish is to tobacco as salt is to food. It improves the taste of whatever you add it to. While adding Turkish improves the flavor, it also lowers nicotine content. If your final blend is too strong nicotine hit wise, just add more Turkish to lighten it up, since Turkish is the lowest nicotine, while Burley is the highest, (outside of Rustica which is 9% and probably not used these days in commercial cigarettes.) If the blend is too low in nicotine, lower the Turkish and add more of either the Burley or Virginia. However, there are some who DETEST Turkish, although those who do seem to prefer the virginia blends, such as Virginia Slims or Marlboro Virginia Blend. Such people will also DETEST 100% Virginia cigarettes, which is difficult for me to fathom.

I am sorry I can't answer your question directly but can only provide rough outlines. I haven't even had my first harvest, so the information I have provided here comes strictly from my own experimentations in ryo and what I have learned from others as far as blending the different ryo tobaccos, but these are the same guidelines I will use to blend up my own snus and blend up smokes for friends when the time comes.

Last edited by alist on Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:54 am; edited 10 times in total

alist

Smoker Joined: Sep 01, 2007 Posts: 133

by alist on Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:28 am

libertarian99 wrote:

Is there a trick or secret for getting the plants from the germination stage to the ground-ready stage?

I don't know, but I can tell you what I did that worked and tell you what I did that didn't work. I started with a Jiffy Greenhouse, which had ten peat pellets. I sowed 4 seeds each on top of the peat, for each peat pellet. Do 5-7 if you aren't sure of your seeds. Don't bury the seeds. The jiffy greenhouse allows them to be watered from the bottom, so you don't wash the seeds off from the top of the peat when watering. Once you have done that, you can put the clear lid on it. That lid is what makes the greenhouse. (You won't have to water before putting the lid on, because the peat pellets are flat and must be watered to get them to expand before sowing.) Place the peat pellets in the light. If you sit the greenhouse outdoors, don't put it in direct light. (If you sow at the correct time of year, it will be too cold to put them outdoors anyway.) They need light to germinate, but I feared baking the seeds with too much heat with the lid on. Those who start these at the right time of the year, place the Jiffy Greenhouse on a heating mat, indoors and will often place them 4 inches under fluorescent light (incandescent can bake them) for anywhere from 18-24 hours per day. Mine would have probably already been in the ground had I done this, We have had MUCH rain, but little sun so far this year. It is the combination of temperature, humidity and light that cause them to sprout. Certain of the Turkish come up within 1-3 days. The Virginia Gold took about 10-14 days to come up. You will first see white specks.

I transplanted mine very early into styrofoam cups with organic potting soil. That's because I didn't want 3-4 plants to end up rooting together on the peat pellets. Being like tomato plants, they don't put down roots early. Supposedly, you can pick them up and place them right on top of the soil bare root. I used a 1/8 teaspoon measuring spoon as my shovel, and transplanted a bit of the peat into the potting soil, along with the plants, while using a toothpick to move the soil around as needed. Then you sit and wait. People make jokes about how the seedlings sit there and do nothing, when they are actually laying down the tap root. The more light the better at this stage, but 16-18 hours per day is probably enough if still under fluorescent. The leaves on mine are now about the size of nickels on the largest ones, but they have no height yet. I am hoping within 1-2 weeks I can get them in the ground, given the massive amount of sun we are getting now.

If you start them indoors, they must be hardened off before putting in the ground. That means gradual exposure to the outdoors to give the plants time to adjust. Since I sowed these first seeds mid-April, I moved my styrofoam cups outdoors as soon as I had them all transplanted (after all danger of frost has passed), which means mine are already hardened off.

libertarian99 wrote:

I can get them to germinate, but the tiny sprouts never get any bigger. They are spindly and end up wilting and dying without getting any bigger.

I also started some even later. I had read it is best to start them in the dark. (You know how it goes - everyone has their method which is probably highly dependent on local geography.) So I sowed a few in 7 styrofoam cups, with potting soil,.placed them on a houseplant tray, then covered them with a plastic bag, which was tied off for humidity and placed them in the bottom of a dark closet.I checked them regularly. A week later, the seeds had come up, but they were tall, and very spindly. None of them survived. The major difference was lack of light. The secondary difference may have been lack of high humidity, which wasn't an issue with the Jiffy Greenhouse.

Did you have plenty of light on your seedlings? They need light and lots of it, once they sprout, is what I understand. Given tobacco grows like weeds here in the south and given the extremely intense summer temps here (95+) and extreme sunlight here, the plants must really want and need very high levels of light.

(Jiffy Greenhouse Disclaimer: My friend on the ryo forums whose pictures I referenced earlier lost some seedlings in a Jiffy Greenhouse once because they peat pellets dried out. He refuses to use the Jiffy Greenhouses now. So if you use them, keep a close eye on the moisture level of the peat pellets.)

alist

Smoker Joined: Sep 01, 2007 Posts: 133

by libertarian99 on Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:24 am

alist wrote:

If you sit the greenhouse outdoors, don't put it in direct light. (If you sow at the correct time of year, it will be too cold to put them outdoors anyway.) They need light to germinate, but I feared baking the seeds with too much heat with the lid on. Those who start these at the right time of the year, place the Jiffy Greenhouse on a heating mat, indoors and will often place them 4 inches under fluorescent light (incandescent can bake them) for anywhere from 18-24 hours per day.

What is a heating mat?

alist wrote:

Did you have plenty of light on your seedlings? They need light and lots of it, once they sprout, is what I understand. Given tobacco grows like weeds here in the south and given the extremely intense summer temps here (95+) and extreme sunlight here, the plants must really want and need very high levels of light.

(Jiffy Greenhouse Disclaimer: My friend on the ryo forums whose pictures I referenced earlier lost some seedlings in a Jiffy Greenhouse once because they peat pellets dried out. He refuses to use the Jiffy Greenhouses now. So if you use them, keep a close eye on the moisture level of the peat pellets.)

Thanks for all the info.

Last edited by libertarian99 on Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

libertarian99 Enthusiastic Smoker

Enthusiastic Smoker Joined: May 01, 2009 Posts: 453

by alist on Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:50 am

libertarian99 wrote:

What is a heating mat?

Think of a heating pad, to keep your tobacco seeds nice and warm at the right temperature, so you get maximum germination. Google for "seed starting heating mat" for examples and prices. I don't have any but many use them and swear by them. There's a certain temperature range the seeds must have to sprout.

alist wrote:

Thanks for all the info. I will print it out for future reference.

I hope it helps and isn't too slanted for the local geography. I live in tobacco country, but not everyone does.

libertarian99 wrote:

The seeds have not started to germinate outside yet. I put them in half-organic soil and half-peat, and I soaked that mixture in a seed starter solution from Seedman.com.

I had some seeds come up VERY quickly, because I soaked the peat pellets in Maxicrop Seaweed Extract, which contains something like 60 trace elements. Although it works, it's risky, because it looked like a bit of mold had started, so I took the lid off for awhile to dry it out a bit. I will only be using seaweed extract and fish emulsion to fertilize, which are wholly organic methods. I have read repeated warnings to NOT fertilize the seeds, for the same reasons you wouldn't give a baby a protein drink. However, the natural fertilizers like seaweed extract and fish emulsion, have no ability to burn the seedlings as the chemical fertilizers can. I might put manure down in the fall after harvest, to give it time to decompose for next year's growing season. Tobacco is notorious for stripping the soil of nitrogen.

libertarian99 wrote:

I also took some small pots and put them in the windowsill where the cat can't get to them. I was thinking about putting a flat in the basement next to the window to see if that would work. The temperature down there is fairly constant.

I would test EVERY method you can think of, provided you have enough seed that you can afford to lose a few. Then you will be able to narrow down which works best. My goal this year is to get my feet wet in this. The real goal is long term, which is to have enough for my annual snus needs (which doesn't require anywhere NEAR as much tobacco as if I still smoked), so that eventually no one supplies my tobacco but myself, so the government, big tobacco and everyone else is the FLUCK out of my tobacco using business and most particularly, that the government insanity with respect to tobacco taxes goes COMPLETELY UNREWARDED! I expect to have some losses and setbacks. I expect to have to deal with a learning curve. I believe the goal is noble and will be worth it in the end. Your goals may differ than mine, but my goals are precisely why I would test every method you can concoct. It's a learning process. Two years from now, we will have far fewer questions as to how to proceed than we do today.

libertarian99 wrote:

At the rate I'm going, I'm all out of sync with the usual growing season. Is it possible to grow the plants indoors under grow lights if you miss the normal planting time?

Yes. There is a post, I can't remember if it was on the howtogrowtobacco website or coffin nails, but some guy did just that. He placed white papers underneath the pots, to reflect the fluorescent lighting onto the plants, which were planted in five gallon pots. I believe that post was on the coffin nails website, but you might have to search, particularly through older posts. He couldn't get many plants into the room, because how many five gallon pots can you fit into one room? I was amazed at the size he did achieve in an indoor environment, however. It's all about the light I believe, well hell, it's about having a big enough pot too. If you have ever grown tomatoes, you can grow tobacco. They are all nightshades and you can use garden products designed for tomatoes on tobacco plants for that reason. (That's a large part of the reason for my excitement in this. We have grown tomato plants here 7 feet tall, every year, for MANY years.) It's just when people grow tomatoes, they buy plants. So it's getting the seed starting issue worked out that is the first hurdle.

Are you looking for usable leaf this year or just seeds? You might be able to get seeds if not leaf, without having to grow them indoors. And from what I understand about tobacco seed, it localizes to your local growing conditions in one season. In other words, the seeds that will come off of my plants this year, will already be acclimatized to the soil conditions in which this year's plants grow. So next years plants, grown from this year's seeds, will be better suited to the soil, than the seeds we plant this year.

alist

Smoker Joined: Sep 01, 2007 Posts: 133

by White Rabbit on Thu Jun 11, 2009 6:14 pm

Well, I started this post, so I will make my last entry by saying that none of my plants survived. I started them in February, indoors in individual peat pots. 80% germiniated and slowly but surely they all died. Mind you, I have a green thumb. My vegetable garden has cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, lettuce and zucchini, all grown from seed. They are all doing great, but the tobacco was a real bust. Next year, I think I will purchase plants from the seedman and try again.

Best of Luck to all of you who got your plants to grow.

Wabbit

White Rabbit Newbie

Newbie Joined: Feb 19, 2009 Posts: 32

by Asmoker2 on Thu Jun 11, 2009 7:30 pm

Awwwwwwww...sorry to hear that Wabbit. I have a friend whose attempt went bust as well... he's gonna try again next year. *shrugs Maybe I should tell him about the seedman.

Asmoker2

Smoker Joined: Mar 24, 2009 Posts: 143

by Pete Gatti on Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:37 pm

One problem could be the peat, it can become water logged and compacted. The root system doesn't get enough air and begins to rot. That happened with a few of my plants that remained small while the rest got big enough to put in the ground. I loosened the peat around each of the stunted plants and within a few weeks they started growing again.

So far my plants are doing well. Survivors of the first batch that I steamed are about 4 ft high the second batch are about a foot high.

BTW, We have a weed that grows in this area that looks very much like my turkish tobacco. The plant structure is the same but the leaves are a deeper green and slightly more pointed. However, in the past few weeks, the top of the plant branched out into 3 long stalks. The turkish doesn't do that. I'm wondering if this might be a wild strain of tobacco that the Indians smoked. I tried searching the internet but couldn't find anything. I'm seriously thinking of curing the leaves and trying it but I don't want to poison myself either. Anyone know anything about it?

Pete Gatti Enthusiastic Smoker

Enthusiastic Smoker Joined: Mar 26, 2009 Posts: 222 Location: Dade City, Florida

by activist0000 on Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:00 pm

Pete Gatti wrote:

BTW, We have a weed that grows in this area that looks very much like my turkish tobacco. The plant structure is the same but the leaves are a deeper green and slightly more pointed. However, in the past few weeks, the top of the plant branched out into 3 long stalks. The turkish doesn't do that. I'm wondering if this might be a wild strain of tobacco that the Indians smoked. I tried searching the internet but couldn't find anything. I'm seriously thinking of curing the leaves and trying it but I don't want to poison myself either. Anyone know anything about it?

Before you try smoking it, you might want to watch the movie "Into the Wild," if you haven't already seen it. It was based on the true story of a guy who decided to leave civilization and try to survive in the wilderness. He was searching for true freedom. In the end, he ate a poisonous plant and died.

If I were you, I would take the plant to a local university for identification, then smoke it only after making sure it won’t cause you to die a horrific death.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve started to wonder myself if there were any plants growing in my vicinity that could be dried and smoked. The grass in the backyard is starting to look better and better as the cost of cigs goes up. Wink

activist0000 Toker

Toker Joined: May 26, 2009 Posts: 86

by Asmoker2 on Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:07 pm

Pete Gatti wrote:

Thanks, Pete, I'll pass the information along.

And, yeah, don't try anything that's gonna kill you. Pleeeeeeeeeeeze!

Asmoker2

Smoker Joined: Mar 24, 2009 Posts: 143

All times are GMT - 5 Hours

Page 3 of 6 Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next Smoking Lobby Smokers Rights Forum Index ~ Roll Your Own

Smoking Lobby Forum for Smokers Rights