The high combustability of my Xanthi Yaka

[Jitterbugdude]

This past year I grew about a dozen Xanthi Yaka. The seed was obtained from GRIN just before they closed up shop. I air cured them and kilned them. The tobacco smokes like any other tobacco I"ve smoked. I use it 100% in my pipe with no problems. I know that Xanthi Yaka is known to have poor combustability and is therefore mixed with other tobaccos. I have smoked pure Xanthi Yaka from another forum member and true to form I could not keep it lit.

Anyone want to speculate as to why my crop burns "normal"? If it helps, these were grown in soil that was fertilized to about 80lb/acre of Nitrogen. The plants were not watered but they were spaced about 30 inches apart. They were stalk cured as oppossed to being strung.

I'm thinking the Nitrogen I added and the wide spacing had something to do with it.
Just wondering....

Randy B

 

[deluxestogie]

I think you may be right about the nitrogen. I suspect that the composition of aromatic oils that are released during smoking is affected by the burn rate. My slowest burning Xanthi Yaka seems to be the most typical of commercial Yenidje, in aroma and flavor. Of course, this might also be due to leaf size, growth rates, carb ratios (affected by nitrogen availability), and not directly related to burn rate. Interesting stuff.

Bob

 

[Matty]

As long as we're speculating... I'm gonna say it may be due to the stalk curing, as the plant was on it's "death bed" hanging by it's stalk, it may have used up some of the combustion prohibitors.

 

[istanbulin]

...I'm thinking the Nitrogen I added and the wide spacing had something to do with it.
Just wondering....

Randy B

There may be a lot of reasons for this. Here are some;

1- Tobaccos grown in lowlands or plains burn better than grown in slopes (yaka or yarı yaka). I think your area is a plain (?),
2- Richer soils made regular (good) burning tobaccos (you used some fertilizer),
3- Burning rate increases with the amount of potassium in the soil (so in the leaf).
4- Stalk curing cause migration of some substances from leaf to stalk and it makes leaf a little bit thinner than usual and provides more combustible leaves than priming method.

The low cumbustibility of Xanthi is generally because of its thick texture but I think you catch the combination of these four points above and obtained a good burning Xanthi.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Istanbulin, I think you hit the nail on the head! I smoked a bowl last night of pure Xanthi Yaka and I only had to light it once, it never burned out.
Yes, my garden would be considered a "plain", I did add Nitrogen and Potassium last spring and I did stalk cure them.

 

[istanbulin]

JDB, when I was reading another thread about fertilization, a question emerged in my mind. You have a Xanthi Yaka tobacco with a good combustibility but I wonder they taste different (poorer in aroma etc.) than low combustible Xanthi Yaka tobaccos ? I think this may be possible but to display this it's better to taste another Xanthi Yaka by you. As I remember Bob's Xanthi Yaka has a low combustible character, have you tried to smoke it ? This may be a good individual experiment to determine the correlation between combustability and aroma (taste etc.). Of course sense of taste is very variable from person to person but I think this test is worth a try. What do you think ?

 

[Planter]

During my first tests of last year´s crop, pure Xanthi wasn´t burning well.
Since then I´ve prepared several press cakes, and although a cube cut supposedly slows the burn rate, two or three matches are enough to keep it going.