US Nicotiana Germplasm Collection 2013 Nursery

[JessicaNicot]

This is a picture of one of my float trays taken about 2 weeks after we pulled plants. You can see there are only plants in every other column of cells. they stopped trimming them so yeah, they're pretty big.

TRANSPLANTING: Plants were hand transplanted into the field on 26 April 2013. The field had already been worked into rows by a tractor (I believe the spacing is 42") and had been treated with Command for weeds (and probably some fertilizer also but i dont know the rate). The previous day, the field had been marked off and all of the 819 stakes had been set out. On the day of transplanting, we pulled 6 plants of each accession and put them in a paper bag that was labeled with plot number. The bags were kept in numerical order and trucked from the float house to the field where the bags were matched to their corresponding stake in the field. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find anyone who took any pictures of the actual hand transplanting. We had about a dozen people- people running buckets of water, people making holes at about 22" apart and adding water with the antique single plant hand setters, and people like me doing the hard task of getting down in the dirt putting the plants in- and it still took from 6am til 3pm to get it finished.


The weather here has been crappy almost the entire time since the plants went in the ground. seriously, its been cold and wet nearly every day. i imagine this is what living in Seatle must be like. I went out to the field to check up on the plants yesterday and took a couple pictures.




i only lost about 5 plants out of 1500 so i think that's a win. the plants had been pretty dormant but are growing a little. we will go back out in about a week and cut back the plots to 5 plants and replant missing plants.

 

[Fisherman]

You need a helper lemme know
what I wouldn't do for that field ......................
Dam if it don't look like the stems were wrapped they are so big !

 

[holyRYO]

Thing of beauty!

 

[JessicaNicot]

Dam if it don't look like the stems were wrapped they are so big !

those are some burley accessions. their stems are generally thicker than those of other market types. there are these other plants that are HUGE (i didnt take a pic but i'll try to remember to get one when we go back out). i think you could shoot them like arrows.

 

[deluxestogie]

I have been accused of being crazy for growing a mere 43 varieties in a single season. Don has committed similar acts of insanity. There are others. Although it all comes down to systematic record keeping, it still makes my brain hurt. Your grow is impressive.

Bob

 

[leverhead]

That is a pretty sight! I'd like to see it in another month or so.

 

[workhorse_01]

It's beautiful the plants line up like the Headstones at Arlington. It reminds me of a new orange grove being planted. I'm sure you remember what that looked like.

 

[rainmax]

Good work. Thanks for sharing. I wonder hoe they gonna look after a month or so.
Will you regular check for worms or you will use any pesticide?

 

[JessicaNicot]

Good work. Thanks for sharing. I wonder hoe they gonna look after a month or so.
Will you regular check for worms or you will use any pesticide?

there are blank rows in the field to allow for a sprayer to roll though to keep the worms down. our biggest problem seems to be budworms. we dont see hownworms very often but when you see one, its usually already been parasitized by a wasp.

 

[deluxestogie]

Jessica,
What material do you use for bagging the bud heads? What are the dimensions of your bags?

Bob

 

[BigBonner]

I see the plants are older at transplanting , from my years of growing burley this tends to make tobacco bloom prematurely . Do you think that will make them flower quicker ?
I also see a round brown spot on one leaf in the top picture that resembles a sign of blue mold .
I only see one and I don't believe its blue mold or target spot , probably damage from mowing .

 

[LeftyRighty]

what product do you use when you spray for budworms ?

 

[skychaser]

I'M BACK! Finally. I had two total computer crashes in two days. Got one back in action yesterday and my new motherboard for the other just arrived this morning. Time for my geekie wife to get busy now and put it in. And time for some tobacco talk for me.

what product do you use when you spray for budworms ?

What's a bud worm? lol Ok, I know what they are. We just don't have them here. Or any other pest that bothers our tobacco. No tobacco diseases either. It's one of the blessings of growing in an area where no one has ever grown tobacco before.

Jessica .... WELCOME! This has quickly become my favorite topic ever! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I have sent you a pm so check your in box.

The first thing I noticed in your photos is how big your plants are when they are set out. I plant them much earlier like Bigbonner does. Why do you hold them so long before planting out?

I have started plants earlier in bigger pots and held them until they are much bigger than usual, and then planted them along side smaller plants to see what difference it makes. By mid season you couldn't tell a difference. They all flowered at the same time. The only thing I have seen cause premature bloom is prolonged cool cloudy weather in the early part of the season.

Bob had a great question too. What do you use for bags and where can I get some? My wife makes ours out of Agribon fabric. We had 1260 bagged plants last year. This year there will be 200+ more. That's a lot of bags to make and we would rather buy them. (at a reasonable price that is)

How many plants are grown when you grow out a variety? We grow ours in groups of 24, 36 or 72. Usually 36. We stick to the rule of a minimum of 20 inbreeding plants and 100 out breeding plants when growing for seed to ensure a good mix of genes. The only time we ever grow less is if we simple can't get enough seed to sprout to get 20 plants. Do you fallow the same 20/100 guidlines?

Can you tell us more about the mutagenic plants?

Sky

 

[JessicaNicot]

Jessica,
What material do you use for bagging the bud heads? What are the dimensions of your bags?

this is the number one question i have been getting. The pollination bags we use are called Delnet bags and they can be obtained from Delstar technologies (http://delstartech.thomasnet.com/viewitems/product-catalog-delnet/delnet-pollination-bags?&bc=100|3001152).
For tobacco, you would want the 16" x 18" size which come in boxes of 500 or 1000. We attach our bags with zip ties that have the locking mechanism
that allows you to un-cinch them because this works best for our system. If you plan on just harvesting the whole heads and hanging them up to dry then you
could probably just use regular zip ties.

 

[JessicaNicot]

I see the plants are older at transplanting , from my years of growing burley this tends to make tobacco bloom prematurely . Do you think that will make them flower quicker ?
I also see a round brown spot on one leaf in the top picture that resembles a sign of blue mold .
I only see one and I don't believe its blue mold or target spot , probably damage from mowing .

we havent had blue mold in NC in at least a decade, if not longer. it's most likely damage from handling during transplanting, but it also has been unusually cold and wet so far this season. there was opportunistic fungi (necrophobic like sooty mold) in some of our float houses and something causing stem rot, but it wasnt at a level that caused any significant loss.

we have a lot of very diverse germplasm. each year there is a range in flower times amongst the lines from about 6-12 weeks after transplanting, however within line flowering is usually fairly uniform. if our older transplants somehow impact days to flower, there isn't really any way for us to know. i just began taking flowering date data a couple years ago so it'll be about 6 more years until those same varieties come back around again for a comparison.

 

[deluxestogie]

The Delnet bags seem small for many tobacco varieties. I've had some of my 24"W x 30"L Agribon bags fill to the bursting point, though for most, the 24" x 30" is perfect. The Delnet 18" x 20" bags seem an ideal size for most of the Turkish varieties. The other issue is that I sew a Tyvek tag into the margin of each of my bags for labeling. How do you label the Delnet bags?

BUT...sewing the Agribon into bags is a major PITA. The cost of the Agribon-AG15 material itself is, of course, much less expensive.

Bob

 

[JessicaNicot]

The Delnet bags seem small for many tobacco varieties. I've had some of my 24"W x 30"L Agribon bags fill to the bursting point, though for most, the 24" x 30" is perfect. The Delnet 18" x 20" bags seem an ideal size for most of the Turkish varieties. The other issue is that I sew a Tyvek tag into the margin of each of my bags for labeling. How do you label the Delnet bags?

BUT...sewing the Agribon into bags is a major PITA. The cost of the Agribon-AG15 material itself is, of course, much less expensive.

Bob

we do not keep much seed on hand so we dont usually let the head fully expand, plus we wait until a few flowers are already open so that the flower head is already starting to expand and we usually trim off the lowest couple branches to prevent bag bursting. we do not label our pollination bags. when we harvest the heads, we put the flower head in a labeled paper bag (we use the double layer paper bags) for drying and roll it over and staple it closed.

if youre harvesting whole heads and drying them in the agribon bags, couldnt you just tie a harvest tag around the stalk/bag as you cut them off? they make these tags, we call them harvest tags, that are a vinyl with wire ties.

 

[Fisherman]

Would reducing the number in a bloom stalk make more viable seeds?
Also where I live adding the larger size bag to the top of a taller plant would be like walking in a hurricane carrying a sheet of plywood. I dont have much height here on mine but the leaves themselves catch unholy hell at times.
I think that a majic marker would work on the Delnet bag as it looks sorta like a plastic??????

 

[JessicaNicot]

Would reducing the number in a bloom stalk make more viable seeds?
Also where I live adding the larger size bag to the top of a taller plant would be like walking in a hurricane carrying a sheet of plywood. I dont have much height here on mine but the leaves themselves catch unholy hell at times.
I think that a majic marker would work on the Delnet bag as it looks sorta like a plastic??????

on the first question, no. and the second, i dont think that would show up very well. it is translucent plastic and it will be very hard to see over top of the flower head.

 

[JessicaNicot]

The first thing I noticed in your photos is how big your plants are when they are set out. I plant them much earlier like Bigbonner does. Why do you hold them so long before planting out?

How many plants are grown when you grow out a variety? We grow ours in groups of 24, 36 or 72. Usually 36. We stick to the rule of a minimum of 20 inbreeding plants and 100 out breeding plants when growing for seed to ensure a good mix of genes. The only time we ever grow less is if we simple can't get enough seed to sprout to get 20 plants. Do you fallow the same 20/100 guidlines?

Can you tell us more about the mutagenic plants?

well we plant experiments at 4 different locations (as well have some other small experiments at the mountain stations that someone else looks over) around the state, each with its own float houses, machinery and staff. scheduling transplanting at all these stations is very hectic because they also work with other researchers and in some cases, other crops. the plants were ready for the clayton nursery at least 3 weeks before we got them in the ground. it also didnt help that there was that late blast of very cold weather and so everyone wanted to wait til after the frost date (april 15) before getting started.

as far as the number of plants, we (my boss) assumes inbred status and plants 5. up until 2 years ago, the germplasm collection had 10-plant plots. tobacco makes so much seed (well most varieties do) and we keep so little on hand in comparison, that we get at least 3x what we need from just 5 plants.

the mutant population comes from seed that was exposed to a chemical that induces mutations. its in the field to shore up seed supplies and establish purelines. this population is used for research because it contains lots of novel genotypic diversity, including gene knockout. using mutations from this population, ncsu was able to generate new varieties of tobacco that no longer convert nicotine to nornicotine (which is the precursor for the worst tobacco specific carcinogens).