Plantdude 2020 plant torture grow log

[Knucklehead]

Our member from Turkey who was a botany professor there has been an excellent source for information on Turkish varieties. Turkish varieties are traditionally spaced extremely close compared to American grown varieties. There is a chart in the first thread. If you become truly enamored with the Turkish varieties as some of us have, you would be well served to use the Search box above and type in Istanbulin.

FAQ about Turkish tobaccos

I think we can gather together the FAQ about Turkish tobaccos. I'd like to start with the most but the most FAQ question (to me); which strain to grow ? (1) There certainly are a lot of different types of Turkish tobaccos. If you could only grow one variety, what would it be and why? Ray...

fairtradetobacco.com

Planning Staggered Rows

Here're two staggered row plans with different planting density. 1- 2- For the first scheme, vertical distance between rows (d) is 0.86 of the within row spacing (D). As an example for the 1st scheme, let's say you're transplanting some Burley with 60 cm (approx. 2') : - First row is...

fairtradetobacco.com

Tobacco Regions of Greece

All of the farmers use almost same methods to grow and cure Oriental tobaccos regardless to the country. So nothing very different in cultivation in Greece as well as other Oriental tobacco growing countries. Here's a map of Oriental tobacco growing regions; As seen from the map, the major...

fairtradetobacco.com

Photos of some Oriental varities

I'm adding these photos for a basic reference here. Although under photo informations are not sufficient, photos may help people to identify varieties. Basma Dubek East Type "East Type" is not a standart type of Oriental tobacco. It doesn't have specific...

fairtradetobacco.com

Sun Curing

Even though there're some rare and extreme exceptions sun curing is the only way of curing oriental type tobaccos in their growing regions. Sun curing requires at least life-long experience about your climate (humidity, sunny and rainy days wind etc...), growing tobacco, leaf characterics of...

fairtradetobacco.com

Bulgarian Varieties

Bulgarian (oriental) tobacco growing areas are generally located in the southern side of the country near to Greece and Turkish border ( like Kardzhali (especially Dzhebel, Krumovgrad towns), Plovidv, Haskovo areas and etc.) Especially Dzhebel (or Djebel or Cebel in Turkish) variety is known...

fairtradetobacco.com

Origins of the Turkish tobaccos

As you know tobacco was spreaded all over the world from Americas. In the heaven of tobacco, Turkish tobaccos really have different characterisics. But we know that they have the same origins with the others. So it's only the miracle of dedicated work of cultivation. Where they came from ...

fairtradetobacco.com

About "Hungarian" varieties

As you know from another post, I believe that Hungarian as a tobacco variety is a concoction. Why I think like this ? First, although Bitlis is an Turkish variety it's classified as a Hungarian variety in ARS-GRIN. There may be similarities among these tobaccos but some of them are really...

fairtradetobacco.com

Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia strains

Eastern Anatolia Region is located in the easternmost part of Turkey. It is bounded by Turkey's Central Anatolia Region on the west, its Black Sea Region on the north, its Southeast Anatolia Region and Iraq on the south, and with Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia on the east...

fairtradetobacco.com

Izmir

We discussed about Izmir strains, generally know where Izmir is located, superificially. But how the city Izmir ? What's it like ? Take a look at the video :) What a lovely city. Isn't it ?

fairtradetobacco.com

My favorite Turkish varieties have been narrowed down to two - Prilep and Izmir

 

[deluxestogie]

growing orientals...some advice

I would suggest no more than one or two Oriental varieties per season. I plant most at 1.15 sq. ft. per plant. That's ±26 plants into a modest, 5' x 6' bed. In traditional growing regions, they are planted as close as 6" apart, seldom if ever irrigated, and only minimally fertilized. This produces the "tiny" leaves that are available commercially. But as a home-grower, I have compromised between the massive labor of such tiny leaves vs. the intense aromas that result from such stressed plants.

So, at ~9-12" between plants, my Xanthi (a Basma type) reached about 3' in height, with ~8" leaves (way too big for the market in Turkey), though they have a decent Oriental aroma. The same variety, when I planted it at typical American spacing (24-36" between plants) grew to about 8' tall, with 14" leaves and was not particularly typical of Oriental leaf in its strength and aroma.

By contrast, I plant Prilip @ 1.875 sq. ft. per plant (16 plants per 5' x 6' bed), and have been delighted with the results. Prilep is somewhat related to Basma, but is a relatively new introduction (from Prilip, North Macedonia).

Bafra, Samsun and Trabzon are a different group. They are similar to one another. I used Trabzon in my latest Latakia firing trial.

I've grown a couple of dozen Oriental varieties, and found nuanced differences among them. But it's a lot of work, just to say that you grew them.

Bob

 

[Radagast]

Cigar rolling attempt 2. Still looks like a turd but this one is much more solid. Another 50 tries or so and I'll have this down

View attachment 31850

I'd have no qualms smoking that.. nothing turdly about it, I think it looks great!

 

[plantdude]

Our member from Turkey who was a botany professor there has been an excellent source for information on Turkish varieties. Turkish varieties are traditionally spaced extremely close compared to American grown varieties. There is a chart in the first thread. If you become truly enamored with the Turkish varieties as some of us have, you would be well served to use the Search box above and type in Istanbulin.

FAQ about Turkish tobaccos

I think we can gather together the FAQ about Turkish tobaccos. I'd like to start with the most but the most FAQ question (to me); which strain to grow ? (1) There certainly are a lot of different types of Turkish tobaccos. If you could only grow one variety, what would it be and why? Ray...

fairtradetobacco.com

Planning Staggered Rows

Here're two staggered row plans with different planting density. 1- 2- For the first scheme, vertical distance between rows (d) is 0.86 of the within row spacing (D). As an example for the 1st scheme, let's say you're transplanting some Burley with 60 cm (approx. 2') : - First row is...

fairtradetobacco.com

Tobacco Regions of Greece

All of the farmers use almost same methods to grow and cure Oriental tobaccos regardless to the country. So nothing very different in cultivation in Greece as well as other Oriental tobacco growing countries. Here's a map of Oriental tobacco growing regions; As seen from the map, the major...

fairtradetobacco.com

Photos of some Oriental varities

I'm adding these photos for a basic reference here. Although under photo informations are not sufficient, photos may help people to identify varieties. Basma Dubek East Type "East Type" is not a standart type of Oriental tobacco. It doesn't have specific...

fairtradetobacco.com

Sun Curing

Even though there're some rare and extreme exceptions sun curing is the only way of curing oriental type tobaccos in their growing regions. Sun curing requires at least life-long experience about your climate (humidity, sunny and rainy days wind etc...), growing tobacco, leaf characterics of...

fairtradetobacco.com

Bulgarian Varieties

Bulgarian (oriental) tobacco growing areas are generally located in the southern side of the country near to Greece and Turkish border ( like Kardzhali (especially Dzhebel, Krumovgrad towns), Plovidv, Haskovo areas and etc.) Especially Dzhebel (or Djebel or Cebel in Turkish) variety is known...

fairtradetobacco.com

Origins of the Turkish tobaccos

As you know tobacco was spreaded all over the world from Americas. In the heaven of tobacco, Turkish tobaccos really have different characterisics. But we know that they have the same origins with the others. So it's only the miracle of dedicated work of cultivation. Where they came from ...

fairtradetobacco.com

About "Hungarian" varieties

As you know from another post, I believe that Hungarian as a tobacco variety is a concoction. Why I think like this ? First, although Bitlis is an Turkish variety it's classified as a Hungarian variety in ARS-GRIN. There may be similarities among these tobaccos but some of them are really...

fairtradetobacco.com

Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia strains

Eastern Anatolia Region is located in the easternmost part of Turkey. It is bounded by Turkey's Central Anatolia Region on the west, its Black Sea Region on the north, its Southeast Anatolia Region and Iraq on the south, and with Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia on the east...

fairtradetobacco.com

Izmir

We discussed about Izmir strains, generally know where Izmir is located, superificially. But how the city Izmir ? What's it like ? Take a look at the video :) What a lovely city. Isn't it ?

fairtradetobacco.com

My favorite Turkish varieties have been narrowed down to two - Prilep and Izmir

Thanks, I've been slowly making my way through some of these on the key forum threads. Lots of good info. I saw a pic of prilep p66/7 that @deluxestogie linked to. Prilep looks like a beautiful variety. I'm gong to have to try and find some of that if for no other reason than looks alone

 

[plantdude]

I would suggest no more than one or two Oriental varieties per season. I plant most at 1.15 sq. ft. per plant. That's ±26 plants into a modest, 5' x 6' bed. In traditional growing regions, they are planted as close as 6" apart, seldom if ever irrigated, and only minimally fertilized. This produces the "tiny" leaves that are available commercially. But as a home-grower, I have compromised between the massive labor of such tiny leaves vs. the intense aromas that result from such stressed plants.

So, at ~9-12" between plants, my Xanthi (a Basma type) reached about 3' in height, with ~8" leaves (way too big for the market in Turkey), though they have a decent Oriental aroma. The same variety, when I planted it at typical American spacing (24-36" between plants) grew to about 8' tall, with 14" leaves and was not particularly typical of Oriental leaf in its strength and aroma.

By contrast, I plant Prilip @ 1.875 sq. ft. per plant (16 plants per 5' x 6' bed), and have been delighted with the results. Prilep is somewhat related to Basma, but is a relatively new introduction (from Prilip, North Macedonia).

Bafra, Samsun and Trabzon are a different group. They are similar to one another. I used Trabzon in my latest Latakia firing trial.

I've grown a couple of dozen Oriental varieties, and found nuanced differences among them. But it's a lot of work, just to say that you grew them.

Bob

Thank you, I had read a little about the closer spacing and the effect on leaf size and this summarized it very nicely. Prilip sounds like it's worth a try after the good reviews by everyone and the nice looking picture in one of your threads. I'm a sucker for a pretty plant

 

[plantdude]

I'd have no qualms smoking that.. nothing turdly about it, I think it looks great!

Thanks. I would give Bob's video credit, but I should wait until they get a little better so as not to embarrass Bob. His video was very helpful and straightforward for beginners like me. I've watched some others and tend to get lost in the details.
@deluxestogie video link: https://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/hand-rolling-a-fat-cigar-no-mold-no-glue.7944/post-145259

 

[deluxestogie]

Prilep looks like a beautiful variety. I'm gong to have to try and find some of that

Northwood Seeds Providing organically grown seed for home gardeners

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Northwood Seeds Providing organically grown seed for home gardeners

Bob

I was checking out their site and notice they have perique listed as an oriental. Is that correct?

 

[deluxestogie]

Yes and no. They list Perique as an Oriental, because ARS-GRIN incorrectly listed (and continues to list) it as an Oriental. It is not. It's just a robust, fairly strong, American tobacco that originated from "Red Burley", and subsequently hybridized with probably some Virginia variety over a century or so, prior to the recognition of Mendelian genetics. Physically, the plant looks nearly identical to Hickory Pryor, though the leaf cures out differently.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Yes and no. They list Perique as an Oriental, because ARS-GRIN incorrectly listed (and continues to list) it as an Oriental. It is not. It's just a robust, fairly strong, American tobacco that originated from "Red Burley", and subsequently hybridized with probably some Virginia variety over a century or so, prior to the recognition of Mendelian genetics. Physically, the plant looks nearly identical to Hickory Pryor, though the leaf cures out differently.

Bob

Has anyone run molecular markers to determine population structure in a large number of tobacco lines yet? If not that could be an excellent graduate student project for someone at NCSU working with GRIN. Agriplex has a 1000 SNP assay that costs about $12 a sample (that includes the DNA extraction process). That would be plenty of markers to determine poulation structure and known additional markers for specific traits could be included as well. I would think some of the tobacco companies would be willing to shell out some grant money for something like that - assuming it has not already been done of course.

 

[Knucklehead]

Has anyone run molecular markers to determine population structure in a large number of tobacco lines yet? If not that could be an excellent graduate student project for someone at NCSU working with GRIN. Agriplex has a 1000 SNP assay that costs about $12 a sample (that includes the DNA extraction process). That would be plenty of markers to determine poulation structure and known additional markers for specific traits could be included as well. I would think some of the tobacco companies would be willing to shell out some grant money for something like that - assuming it has not already been done of course.

Couldn’t you just smoke it and see what the traits were? There are only 2500+ accessions in the GRIN database. If I agreed to smoke it and give my opinion at $6 per sample, I could save the tobacco companies hundreds, no thousands, no maybe millions of dollars.

edit: plus free smoke!

 

[deluxestogie]

A number of phylogenetic "trees" have been published on a number of categories of tobacco. They were based on some subset of mitochondrial DNA or on a small number of cytoplasmic DNA markers. What they have come up with is less than stellar science. [Crazy stuff like Xanthi yaka is only distantly related to Xanthi djebel, or that a Tennessee burley is closely related to Sumatra Deli.]

Big Tobacco imports an increasing proportion of its leaf (cheaper than paying American tobacco farmers) from third world countries, and doesn't really want to know what it is, so long as it works in their blends. Tobacco got the boot from research grants in the US prior to affordable sequencing methods.

Looks like you'll be the lone pioneer on this quest.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Couldn’t you just smoke it and see what the traits were? There are only 2500+ accessions in the GRIN database. If I agreed to smoke it and give my opinion at $6 per sample, I could save the tobacco companies hundreds, no thousands, no maybe millions of dollars.

edit: plus free smoke!

You would have to have a very discerning palate, but it would be for a good cause

A person would have to pick a smaller panel of lines that follow some of the current groupings and go from there. It could be a neat historical/phylogeographical study to trace human and tobacco movement through history looking at some of the historical lines. In response to Bob's email - maybe a person could justify funding through the cultural/anthropological aspect.

 

[Knucklehead]

You would have to have a very discerning palate, but it would be for a good cause

Not so! This would be a purely scientific study based on a grant for funding. The grant would spell out what they wanted proven and I would prove it using the scientific grant method of discarding any evidence that didn’t support what they wanted proven. They nor I would care about the truth, just more grant money. It’s the new scientific chain of evidence theory.

 

[plantdude]

Not so! This would be a purely scientific study based on a grant for funding. The grant would spell out what they wanted proven and I would prove it using the scientific grant method of discarding any evidence that didn’t support what they wanted proven. They nor I would care about the truth, just more grant money. It’s the new scientific chain of evidence theory.

Sad and a little too true.

 

[plantdude]

I would suggest no more than one or two Oriental varieties per season. I plant most at 1.15 sq. ft. per plant. That's ±26 plants into a modest, 5' x 6' bed. In traditional growing regions, they are planted as close as 6" apart, seldom if ever irrigated, and only minimally fertilized. This produces the "tiny" leaves that are available commercially. But as a home-grower, I have compromised between the massive labor of such tiny leaves vs. the intense aromas that result from such stressed plants.

So, at ~9-12" between plants, my Xanthi (a Basma type) reached about 3' in height, with ~8" leaves (way too big for the market in Turkey), though they have a decent Oriental aroma. The same variety, when I planted it at typical American spacing (24-36" between plants) grew to about 8' tall, with 14" leaves and was not particularly typical of Oriental leaf in its strength and aroma.

By contrast, I plant Prilip @ 1.875 sq. ft. per plant (16 plants per 5' x 6' bed), and have been delighted with the results. Prilep is somewhat related to Basma, but is a relatively new introduction (from Prilip, North Macedonia).

Bafra, Samsun and Trabzon are a different group. They are similar to one another. I used Trabzon in my latest Latakia firing trial.

I've grown a couple of dozen Oriental varieties, and found nuanced differences among them. But it's a lot of work, just to say that you grew them.

Bob

Going
Going back to what you said earlier I'm wondering if sticking a few basma plants together in a large pot might not be a bad idea since they are getting planted so late in the season. That should mimick compact field planting conditions and I could bring them indoors if we get an early frost latter in the season. I could put my wife in charge of watering them, which would insure they get severely drought stressed as well

 

[plantdude]

Just a mental note to add to my grow blog... When cooking cornstarch at 400 degrees to make dextrin for use in cigar glue, do not use a toaster oven. Toaster ovens apparently run hotter than conventional ovens. A tray full of corn starch produces flames approximately 12 inches high and smells somewhat reminiscent of burning marshmallows...

Another mental note - replace smoke detector batteries...

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

There's a more extensive chart similar to this somewhere but I can't find it.

 

[plantdude]

Got a decent sized horn worm off the tomatillos today. The wife says the dog looks like a hornworm, I can kinda see it.

 

[plantdude]

I tried my first hand rolled cigar last night. It wasn't packed tight enough but was smokable. The wife tried a puff and said it was better than a lot of the expensive ones I'm always trying in the sampler packs. Personally I thought it was a bit to young tasting still and the flavor was off. The tobacco is going back up in the attic for a few more weeks. Could have been worse for a first attempt, it didn't taste to terrible or explode