Deluxestogie Grow Log 2022

[deluxestogie]

Using cheap, pine tomato stakes to prevent potted tobacco from tipping in a wind gust.

Potted later and into a smaller container. An example of cascading inequity.

Bob

EDIT: A bonus of using cheap pine is that, by the end of the year, it will likely have rotted at the ground level, and can just be snapped off.

 

[deluxestogie]

Still no sign of hornworms. (Maybe they all went to Alabama?) All of my tobacco endured the very same germination and seedling conditions. Now, out in the garden, all of the four "Pieate" and five Machu Picchu Havana are showing early budding. The two potted Machu Picchu Havana are in synchrony with those in the garden bed. The Corojo 99, in three different beds, show no signs of budding. With the exception of a flooding storm 1½ weeks ago (while I was away), there has been practically no rainfall. Only an occasional drizzle. Lazy Bob has refused to haul out the garden hose.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I can't get up from the porch at the moment, to go inside for my camera. That would spoil it.

Just 10 feet beyond the giant Silver Maple that stands 10 yards from my front porch, a large doe grazed in the adjoining pasture. When she noticed me sitting on my front porch, she froze. I spoke to her in baby talk, and waved, then went back to working on my computer. Apparently comfortable with the arrangement, the doe resumed grazing peacefully, knowing that I was there.

I see several deer in the pasture just about every day during this part of the year. They add to my entertainment of watching the groundhog, rabbits, birds and assorted other critters from my front porch. I have one extremely noisy House Wren that nested in the gutter just above the porch. She regularly perches on the porch railing, and chirps into my face. I have watched her snag and carry away bugs and slugs in this immediate area at a rate of one every 30 seconds. She then uses the curly loops of decorative, wrought iron in the porch corner post as a stairstep, until reaching nearly the top curl. From there she has only a slight ascent through the air to reach her nest.

I brought out my camera to try to snap a photo of that cheeky House Wren. This is my hanging cuke of the year.

I gave up waiting for the wren to show up, and decided to at least show the stairstep where she climbs to save effort.

The instant before the camera clicked, she appeared, bug held high.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I just bagged one of my Machu Picchu Havana bud heads, out in the garden. I also topped a second one starting to blossom. I estimate about 57 days to maturity, from transplant to 50% of them in bloom. (This is my Jedi mind trick. Typically, the plant that I bag goes to blossom about 6 days prior to 50% of them in bloom. This has been relatively consistent for the 100+ varieties that I have grown. I ignore aberrant plants that blossom way too early. My choice to bag a particular plant is based mostly on its being truly characteristic of the variety it's supposed to be. That's the seed I select.)

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

As I was about to post the above photo, a doe wandered into the pasture. Every few steps, it croaked like a frog.

I can't tell if it was warning other deer about my presence, or signaling the "Don't worry. He's a friendly" message.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

As I was about to post the above photo, a doe wandered into the pasture. Every few steps, it croaked like a frog.

I can't tell if it was warning other deer about my presence, or signaling the "Don't worry. He's a friendly" message.

Bob

This time of year, perhaps locating her fawn.

 

[deluxestogie]

This time of year, perhaps locating her fawn.

Last week, I saw a fawn sink into the tall grass, and remain there on several occasions. Parenting is never easy.

 

[deluxestogie]

After my morning coffee, I went out to the shed, to try and diminish the 2021 tobacco crop still waiting to be stripped. Hanging leaf must be in case, for me to be able to safely handle it. The humidity has been quite high, but the temps rise rapidly each day. Inside the shed, the temp rises even faster.

I touched a long string of Corojo 99 bottom leaf (again, from 2021). It was just barely in case. I rapidly and tediously un-bent one end of the aluminum wire on which it was strung, and slid (dragged, cursed, wiggled) the leaf from the wire, about 5 leaves at a time. (The dry stems encircling the lightly oxidized aluminum means a lot of friction.) Bunch by bunch, I packed them into a large bag, then added the Tyvek name tag from the wire.

That was it. All the remaining leaf in the shed had gone out of case during that 15 or so minutes. I can hardly notice the reduction in hanging leaf still to be removed. This bag of leaf contains probably 60+ leaves. That will kiln out to maybe 2 to 2½ pounds of ready leaf. A year in the shed, followed by 2 months in the kiln, and bottom leaf is nearly always perfectly aged for use.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Today in the US, we celebrate Amerexit, and the Red, White and Blue colors of more than 2 dozen nations' flags.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

Today in the US, we celebrate Amerexit, and the Red, White and Blue colors of more than 2 dozen nations' flags.

Bob

WWII Marine veteran Carl Dekel reflects on 100 years of life, service, and sacrifice from his home in Plant City, Florida

View: https://youtu.be/wcnQJd_XRQQ

 

[deluxestogie]

I just stripped 8 stalks of MD 609, and bagged the leaf.

An average of 2 to 3 top leaves were discarded from each stalk, due to poorly cured leaf and a veneer of dead aphids. A net of $35 worth of nice leaf from 8 plants. Not too bad a return. I will kiln this bagged leaf for 8 weeks, even though it has a solid year of age in the shed. I don't have to kiln it, for the leaf to be useable, but I feel it comes out nicer with kilning—more finished. Some of it will then be a candidate for making into a smooth Cavendish.
Bob

 

[ericthered]

Bob, have you ever tried making a cavendish with the tobacco in its "less-finished" state? If you were to make a batch of cavendish now, how do you think it would compare to a batch made after 8 weeks in the kiln?

 

[deluxestogie]

Once fully color-cured, most tobacco is fine for making Cavendish. Kilning prior to cooking into Cavendish makes it a bit smoother, and eliminates any need for further aging after cooking and drying. Since cooking destroys all of the leaf's intrinsic oxidizing enzymes (what allows tobacco to "age"), any further clearing of unpleasant volatiles or residual albuminous proteins takes at least 10 times as long.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

"Pieate" Observations

I first grew Piloto Cubano from seed obtained by @ChinaVoodoo from a failed tabacalera startup in Puerto Rico. My planting of 16 of these revealed poor genetic homogeneity. (The seed was not genetically a pure variety.) Some were tall and skinny, some were squat and fatter, and some (the ones I subsequently selected to propagate) grew relatively broad leaves, with a high yield. Whichever forum member submitted seed to the once-active FTT seed bank, labeled a packet of Piloto Cubano in either a careless misspelling, or as illegible text. My conjecture is the following:

• the seed is from that same original Piloto Cubano "mix".
• the Piloto Cubano plant selected for seed production was one of the runty ones (perhaps the earliest to blossom).
• the labeling was incorrect or illegible.

My grow of "Pieate Cuban" (unknown to the entire world) appears generally smaller than the Piloto Cubano that I have grown since 2017. And the "Pieate" vein angle is slightly more acute, though if you look at the final photo below (of the 2017 Piloto Cubano auricles), the vein angle as well as leaf rugosity bear a closer resemblance than in the single leaf size comparisons. I believe this difference is to to the 2017 leaf size photo showing a less mature leaf. Otherwise it closely resembles my own Piloto Cubano.

Note the slightly more acute vein angle.

The auricles of sessile leaf (the frill where it attaches to the stalk) tends to be distinctive from one variety to the next, and quite consistent within a single variety. The "Pieate" auricle is nearly identical to that of my own Piloto Cubano.

The stem angle is nearly the same.

The flower head habit is the same: open.

Leaf Photo Comparison

"Pieate Cuban" 2022 on the left, Piloto Cubano 2017 on the right.

My stalk and auricle shot from 2017:

Unfortunately, I have never taken a close photo of the Piloto Cubano blossom, @skychaser has not grown out the Piloto Cubano that I provided him, and ARS-GRIN does not list it.

All of my measurement points are quite similar, except for size parameters. It will likely be a year or more, before I smoke this leaf, and can say whether or not it offers the characteristically intense aroma and flavor of Piloto Cubano. But for now, I will simply consider it a poorly selected Piloto Cubano strain.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

And that folks is one of the many examples of why Bob is the undisputed Guru of this forum.

 

[skychaser]

And I have grown the Piloto Cubano "PR" that you sent me twice already. But I didn't get much seed either time and I have sold it faster than I can grow it so far. So this year I have 40 more plants in the field. Looking good so far.

Here are a couple of rather poor picts I took a year or two ago. It was very consistent in both grows in size, plant form, leaf shape and leaf count. It got 7'-8' tall with the flowers. Didn't get any picts of those though.

 

[deluxestogie]

The undisputed Guru just squinted, and noticed that his one and only leaf size photo for Piloto Cubano is labeled as the #2 lug! No wonder it looks different. My usual standard is a leaf size photo of the 10th leaf, which is also the one to measure for length and width in ARS-GRIN.

Data rules! And I am lacking some essential data on my Piloto Cubano. I accumulate all of the measurements seen on ARS-GRIN that are not chemical analysis. I have over a decade of detailed spreadsheets. Missing data only hurts when you need it.

@skychaser, I'm glad to hear you've grown out the Piloto Cubano PR Broad. If you can get a nice, close-up of a Piloto Cubano blossom (clearly showing the relative positions of the anthers and pistil) this summer, I would love to have a copy. In my dotage, I continue to decrease the number of varieties I grow each season.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

This is the mysterious "Pieate" I grew. I think it is a sub strain of Piloto Cubano. There are many things that point to it being one. After many hours of searching the internet for information last winter the one thing I am certain of is that "pieate" means absolutely nothing in any language. Nothing.

I did finally come across a photo of Piloto being grown in a field in the Dominican Republic which looked exactly like the plants I had. I grew 40 of them and they were identical to each other almost like clones, suggesting a well developed strain to me. I didn't save the website where I saw them in the DR because, well, Bob's plow mule is smarter than me some days. But I do have a few picts of what I grew. It topped out at just over 6' with the flowers and produced a good amount of seed.

 

[skychaser]

Yes, yes, squint away. I said they were crappy picts. And data DOES rule. No dispute there. lol All hail Guru Bob!

I will try much harder to get good photos of the plants this year. And of the 10th leaf. And the flowers! I'm writing it down on a napkin so I won't forget.