Photo of my tobacco - OldDinosaur

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I do not. I air it out once a day. I keep a humidity / temperature gauge right inside the door so I can monitor said humidity. The main reason I don't have a fan, is there are no electrical outlets in there. Some idiot (me, 30 odd years ago) didn't put any in. At the time, tobacco curing wasn't even on the horizon. I'll have to remedy that situation in the future, but for the time being, so it goes.

Wait a second, you just stimulated my sometimes dull brain. I can get a specialized outlet that will screw into the light socket & I can have electricity for a fan. I swear that guy at the lumber yard can hear the cash jingling in my pockets.

See what you did!

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I don't know Bob, those things cost $4.19 plus tax. I might be bankrupted. Horrors!

Wes H.

 

[BarG]

Wait a second, you just stimulated my sometimes dull brain. I can get a specialized outlet that will screw into the light socket & I can have electricity for a fan. I swear that guy at the lumber yard can hear the cash jingling in my pockets.

See what you did!

Wes H.

Heh Heh, come on now, all handyman know that.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Yeah, well, I'm kind of hit and miss when it comes to handy. Sometimes it takes a little outside stimulus to make the neurons fire. I believe the word is epiphany.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Today's pickings.



Photo one, big pile of Gold Leaf 939 leaves ready to string up.
Photo two, less big pile of Costello Negro ready to string up. Morning coffee waiting for me to consume it.
Photo three, odd double leaf. Never seen one like this before.
Photo four, 5 strings total, 170 leaves Costello Negro (right) 279 leaves Gold Leaf 939 (left)

Days total: 449 leaves.

Season total: 3,425 leaves of all types.

More to pick over the weekend.

As I've said before: this tobacco growing is a lot of work!

Wes H.

 

[Smokin Harley]

Hello, Ive been away for a few months . Those look good . The ones with some yellow will cure really quick . Those dark green ones ,maybe not so much. Good size to them though.

 

[Gavroche]

It's true, the leaf yellow are fast cured and in a uniform way, the leaf green can keep(guard) green spots in passing in the yellow... I think that you should not too much be pressed(be in a hurry) to collect(harvest).


C'est vrai, les jaunes guérissent vite et de façon uniforme, les vertes peuvent garder des taches vertes en passant au jaune...Je pense qu'il ne faut pas être trop pressé pour récolter.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I have not had any trouble color curing either of these varieties. These are both bright leaf types. Yes, the bright leaf types are greener than the burleys. But the greenness doesn't seem to be a major factor in curing these. Maturity of the leaves is the big deal. In spite of a lack of yellowing, (yellowing being a relative term) these leaves were very mature and had become droopy on the stalk. I keep my crop well irrigated, so when the leaves start getting droopy, they are ready to harvest. The leaves above this level are still nice and crisp and need more time to mature. Both of these types have been in the ground for nearly 100 days now.

Wes H.

Where is Ile de France, France?

 

[Gavroche]

Https://www.google.fr/maps/place/%C3%8Ele-de-France/@48.675354,1.3815665,8z/data=!3sm1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47e5e1c403a68c17:0x10b82c3688b2570!8m2!3d48.8499198 ! 4d2.6370411

Je suis dans la ville Lorrez le bocage

https://www.google.fr/maps/place/77...:0x40b82c3688c5600!8m2!3d48.237581!4d2.901267

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I was curious. My father spent a little time in France. With General Patton. On his way to a place called Metz.



My great uncle, my grandfather's brother, is buried in France. He was killed Oct. 11, 1918 exactly one month before the armistice.



Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

The T-O patch is an actual shoulder patch I scanned into my computer. It has held up amazingly well for being over 70 years old. The granite monument is on Utah beach in Normandy. My eldest brother took this photo when he was there three years ago. I also got a small bottle of the beach sand as a memento.

There are 15,000 men in an Infantry division. The 90th turned over more than 28,000 casualties (over 5,000 dead) during the war. 11,000 of those casualties were between June 6, and July 31, while still in the Normandy area. There was a particularly nasty exchange at a place called Foret du Mont Castre, which is within sight of the landing beaches. Two full companies (about 400 men) were wiped out in a few hours (no survivors according to the history I read). I know from reading the actual divisional operational reports that my father was near by, but managed to escape getting shot. That came later, when they were in Germany. He was one of the lucky ones. He survived with only minor wounds. I know that he still had shrapnel in his body when he died many years later. There is a lot of good history out there if you go looking for it. Which I have. The internet is an amazing thing.

Wes H.

P.S. I don't know what this has to do with tobacco...oh yeah, they put cigarettes in the men's rations. Boy has that changed!

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Photos from today



Photo one, today's pickings. Six types, 265 leaves total.
Photos two & three you can see daylight in there. Most of my plants have been primed about two thirds of the way up the stem. I will begin selectively harvesting the whole tops and hanging them intact in my basement soon. (about a week.)

Leaf count total so far this season: 3,690.

I have three types, totaling 36 plants that I haven't touched yet. They are still extremely green & I'm not sure how these will color down & cure. I'm adopting a wait and see attitude with these. They are all three spec. (speculative) types anyway, and if I don't get to harvest them I'm not out anything. Except of course my time & effort. But, that's why we do this...for the challenge! Isn't it?

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

View attachment 21896

That photo could pass for one of Tutu's, taken in Indonesia.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Do they drive Subaru's in Indonesia? I suppose they do.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

"Subaru" is the Japanese name for the constellation, "Pleiades". (Note the 7 sisters of the Pleiades--they show only 5 little ones, merging into one big one--on the hood logo.) Their corporate HQ--Fuji Heavy Industries--is located in Tokyo. So, maybe.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I didn't know about the constellation meaning. Fuji Heavy industries is a mega-corporation with their fingers in a whole lot of pies. Subaru is just one of their many business ventures. I also feel reasonably confident that you could find at least a few putt-putting around in Jakarta.

More photos probably tomorrow. I still have ripe leaves to pick on at least 30 plants. Those should have been done today. Too many interruptions!

I have a tobacco science question. I know about pollen and ovules etc. etc. But where are the pollinated ovules getting their nutrients to make the seeds? Is the water and nutrition being provided by the roots, the stem, the leaves? or some combo of all three? I have seen blooms on hung stalks persist for up to two weeks 'till they finally dried up. Were these blooms still trying to make seeds after being separated from the roots? And could they have succeeded in making any viable seed under these conditions? I know that when you cut a blooming limb off of a tree, the blooms don't last any time at all. That doesn't seem to be the case with tobacco.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

A single tobacco seed consists of a remarkably tiny number of cells, surrounded by a very thin coating of cells. I would guess that the mass of 7000 tobacco seeds (a rough estimate of all the seeds in one pod) is less than the mass of a single lima bean. So it doesn't require a lot of sacrifice on the part of the plant to produce 100 pods of seeds, once all the blossoms have been formed.

Minerals, alkaloids, NPK, micronutrients and water are supplied from the roots, and energy (glucose) is supplied by photosynthesis from all green tissues of the plant. That means that even a stalk that has been stripped bare of all its leaves is probably supplying ample glucose just from the green outer layer of the stalk and all those stumpy leaf remnants (auricles), to continue seed production and maturation.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Yes, and a small Lima bean at that. So they could still be producing seed after being severed from their roots. At least for a while.

So there isn't really much of any endosperm in the seed. Given the tiny size of the individual seed, their couldn't be.

Tobacco is kind of like clams. Clams scatter millions of fertilized eggs to the tides hoping a few will make it. Tobacco scatters tens of thousands of seeds to the wind hoping a few will make it.

Thanks.

Wes H.

P.S. we have a clam here called a Geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck, a Chinook Indian word) that I used to dig for when I lived in Olympia. A big one can weigh 5#'s and have a 42" long neck. The biggest one I ever got weighed 4 1/2 pounds. The flesh is sweet, but chewy. Most of the Geoducks I ever dug were planters put on the beach by the Fish & Wildlife guys. Conversely, wild Geoducks are a rarity, due to the haphazard nature of their reproduction. The commercial guys farm Geoducks and export them to the Orient for big $$. Most of the tidelands are privately owned, and nearly every acre is used to produce clams or oysters. One acre of tideland can produce I don't know how many thousands of Geoducks. I imagine it is similar on the east coast also.

 

[deluxestogie]

The seed (upper drawing) is about 10,000 times larger than the actual seed. Not many cells there. The endosperm is only about 3 cells thick.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Today's pickings & related tobacco activities.



Photo 1, two piles of leaves to string. Left, Bolivia Criollo Dark. Right, Kentucky 17. Bolivia Criollo Dark is 8 feet tall & still growing. Kentucky 17 is a prodigious producer. I will have lots of this one.

Photo 2, two strings. Total 181 leaves.

Photo 3, adjusting bags. They are rapidly filling up. Lots of swelling pods and fresh blooms. These plants are 7 feet at the crows foot, so I have to get up on my 3 step ladder to reach the tops.

Total leaf count this season 3,874.

The forest fire smoke is still terrible around here. The sun is obscured much of the day. Temperatures are 5 to 10 degrees below the predicted highs due to the shading effect of the smoke.

More later.

Wes H.