Using a kiln to cure dark air varieties.

[Jbg]

Sooo, I've been thinking about growing two crops of tobacco planted some months apart the first transplanted somewhere around april 20 and be a dark air/ fire type and attempt to fire cure it in my smokehouse with its separate firebox, and transplant a second batch 2-3 months later maybe around june- july and cure it in a kiln but not crank the heat up so it cures dark not yellow. Thoughts anyone?

Also how big would it need to be to fit the primed leaves of up to 50 plants?

 

[Alpine]

If the weather collaborates, you can air cure ripe leaves up until the end of September (depending on your location and first frost date, of course). After that, a kiln can provide ideal curing conditions regarding temp and humidity. It can and has been done, but it’s certainly not a cheap way to cure leaves. It’s far more convenient to cure the leaves in cardboard boxes (this requires a bit more work, since you have to shuffle the leaves daily) in a heated room of the house if She Who Must Be Obeyed gives permission to do so.

pier

 

[deluxestogie]

If you are intending to color-cure the leaf within a kiln—a "curing chamber", rather than a kiln—then the primed green leaves will need to be attended to daily (as @Alpine suggests), to avoid mold. With this approach, the curing chamber is serving as your curing barn, but without adequate space and ventilation.

I mostly stalk-cut my dark air-cured varieties, and cure them on the stalk, to slow their desiccation. 50 hanging stalks would occupy about half of my single-tier curing shed. My approach is usually to try and transplant during a time window that allows the leaf to naturally color-cure in the shed, prior to my first frost date.

I realize that you are attempting to double-crop, and that I'm not directly answering your question. I would recommend simplifying to a better quality of a smaller crop, rather than doubling the planting and unnecessarily complicating the curing process.

Bob

 

[Jbg]

Thanks for the replies.

The growing season here is officially April 20- Nov 10, but for the last 5 or so years we have reliably have a hard frost around Oct 15, so transplanting around Jul 1 would put harvest around Sept 1-15 depending on variety( leaning towards Ahus for late planting as Paul says its 40-45 days from transplant if I late plant at all). Usually from July to Oct is very humid here with avg high temps in the high 80's to mid 90's.

Bob, your curing shed is 10x10 right? Your probably right about simplifying and growing just one crop as curing was something of a disaster last year but in my defense the weather didn't help either, only got 1/2in of rain from July to Sept, 8 weeks of 100-110deg days and low humidity and too hot at night for the tomatoes to set fruit, most of my tobacco dried green, had some success curing primed basma in a paper bag but i forgot about it and it has some really dark patches on it, maybe house burn idk.