Squeezyjohn's 2013 UK Grow Blog

[deluxestogie]

It sounds as though your leaf is maturing.

Bob

 

[squeezyjohn]

Bingo Bob - that's definitely the answer I wanted!

 

[squeezyjohn]

OK - here's some pics of the way the leaf of the topped YTB plants are at the moment:


Yellowing and spots plus the leaves are going a bit crinkly


The spots on another plant - really pronounced

Are these just the effects of maturing leaf? It's only really happened on the ones that have been topped or have flowered. Some are yet to flower and still look lush and green.


Below is an update on the ladybirds ... they weren't dead! They had hatched as full adults and here is one just emerging from the pupa case. Excellent news for the whole plot - they are brilliant predators of the pests that live round this way.

 

[AmaxB]

The Spots are something other I think, a ladybird and ladybug are they the same insect?

 

[squeezyjohn]

I'm sure we have different varieties in Europe to you in the Americas - but yes I think it's the same thing.

I think the spots are some kind of ailment in the plants too - I've seen similar things in different types of plants ...

 

[Knucklehead]

Do the spots appear to be a smooth solid brown, or do they have rings within rings?

 

[FmGrowit]

It looks like weather fleck to me. Fleck is caused by air pollution, so short of moving out to the country, there's not a lot that can be done for it. It shouldn't cause any problems with curing or quality.

Another thing it could be is aphid bites. Aphids will suck the juice from the leaf and leave a dead spot like that. If you have Ladybugs, you probably have aphids. Again, it's nothing that will interfere with curing or quality unless the plants become infested.

 

[squeezyjohn]

I think given where I am - in the middle of farmer's fields and about 6 miles from the nearest town, Oxford (which is quite small, has no heavy industry and the modern cars everyone has don't put out particulates like they used to) - I think it's probably the aphids!

The plants with the brown spots (bleached white spots in some cases) are exactly the ones with the ladybirds on them and there were definitely small black aphids on them before the ladybirds arrived. In fact those plants have dead aphids on them that got stuck to the sticky leaf - you can see them in the top leaf of the middle picture!

The spots are too small to do a decent photo of, but they are pale brown to white inside with a darker brown ring at the edge where they stop and the green leaf continues.

Thanks for the information Don

 

[Knucklehead]

Look at post # 195 in Deluxestogie's Grow Blog. Could it be the beginning of Tobacco Brown Spot?

 

[FmGrowit]

I think given where I am - in the middle of farmer's fields and about 6 miles from the nearest town, Oxford (which is quite small, has no heavy industry and the modern cars everyone has don't put out particulates like they used to) - I think it's probably the aphids!

We have dead lakes here in the states where vast desolate mountainous regions support no aquatic life due to air pollution from industry located hundreds of miles down wind, but I think it's aphids myself.

Look at post # 195 in Deluxestogie's Grow Blog. Could it be the beginning of Tobacco Brown Spot?

I think brown spot has a much larger chancre than a aphid bite.

 

[squeezyjohn]

Look at post # 195 in Deluxestogie's Grow Blog. Could it be the beginning of Tobacco Brown Spot?

Thanks for the heads up ... it has been wet here the past few weeks but I'm pretty sure the spots have stayed the same size and are pretty inert in the middle which makes me think it's not a fungus at work.

 

[Markw]

Hi Squeezy
Good to see it is going well, and thanks for posting the pictures of the spots. I have also got these on a few plants and I was getting worried about them thinking it was something else. Now if I can remember there was a fantastic post that showed pictures of plants with problems, but can I remembeer where it was is no, lets hope this weather keeps going.

 

[DonH]

Try this link: http://www.forestryimages.org/search/action.cfm?q=tobacco

 

[squeezyjohn]

Well I have to say looking at all those pictures again that I think it IS weather fleck ... so much for my rural pretensions!

 

[squeezyjohn]

I have enough of the YTB plants to experiment with different ways of curing given my limited set-up here so I've cut a few of the most advanced ones whole to have a go at stalk curing in my allotment shed while the temperatures are still high and the humidity is about right (we tend to get a lot of rain and cloud cover in august here. The plants that were cut had about 20% yellowing on the bottom to middle leaves and had been topped about 2.5 weeks ago. The ones I have remaining in the plot are much greener and bigger and still putting on growth - and all those ones are not even flowering yet - I'll put the difference down to different soil qualities.

Anyway - here the plants are sitting upside down in the shed ... It's just got exciting again!

 

[leverhead]

I think it all comes down to finding out what works for your location.

 

[bonehead]

i hear a lot about silver river and yellow twisted bud but never grew ether one. i wan't to try one or both next year. the ytb shure looks nice upside down in your shed. i am not done harvesting yet and already thinking about next year. i think i caught the baccy bug that seems to be going around here.

 

[squeezyjohn]

I think it all comes down to finding out what works for your location.

Bingo! And I have no idea what works well in my location yet apart from the fact that my greenhouse was OK for primed leaf in september but left much longer and they started to develop mould. I think the key to a lot of what we are doing here in the UK is get varieties that go to maturity early and YTB seems to be a good one for that. I did try going for a cure in the shed with primed leaves in the shed last september while it was very hot and sunny and it all started to cure green - I hope that stalk curing and bunching the stalks close together will help the colour cure ... YTB is supposed to be an easy colour cure too.

The black stalk mammoth will probably be a very different customer and I think I will prime that straight to the greenhouse.

 

[workhorse_01]

I found that stalk curing one sucker cured it much faster than priming. I think the stalk pulls the moisture from the leaves faster.

 

[squeezyjohn]

Really? I believed that stalk curing would be a slower process as the leaves don't die so quickly and are fed by the stalk resulting in a more intense tobacco at the end of it!

i shall see what becomes of this YTB (if indeed it is YTB Mark?)