Cigar Birthing

[Strangg1]

One of th emosts interesting posts I have read in a while. I never knew the plants rpoduced so many flowers and seeds. I wish I had a place where I could try and grow some on my own, I think it would be very interesting. I wonder how a single plant would do as a house plant .

Thanks for sharing your passion.


~S

[tzaddi]

This weeks Seedling Photo Update, showing some progress, getting another set of leaves.

[Mr. White]

Lookin' Good.

[tzaddi]

[SIZE="4"]Sunny Days, keep them watered and watch them take off...[/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]The second planting is prolific it must have been the additional ash I mix into the soil.[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]That's it for now, check back next week[/SIZE]

[eriksson20]

Hey There Tzaddi.

how are things? you got some interesting going on here. i will be seeing this through...

miker

[tzaddi]

[SIZE="5"]Udate Week 8
[/SIZE]
The seedling from the first planting is starting to show small hair like follicles. Within a week it should be ready for transplant.



And the second planting is catching up fast.

—Richard

[eriksson20]

Looking good my friend, looking good

miker

[LORD PUFFER]

Originally Posted by Mr. White

Yeah they produce flowers if they are allowed to. Most manufacturers don't allow them to because the flowers take away nutrients from the leaves. Resulting in a smaller leaf with a changed flavor profile.

I wonder if this is part of the reason the plants are often grown under canopies, in order to prevent flowering. I know some arti-light growers will change light to prevent or induce flowering.

[tiptone]

Originally Posted by LORD PUFFER

I wonder if this is part of the reason the plants are often grown under canopies, in order to prevent flowering. I know some arti-light growers will change light to prevent or induce flowering.

That's just to keep the sun from baking them, usually resulting in a nicer wrapper leaf.

Plants that use a photoperiod for determining when to flower won't be affected by just a little less direct light, they need dark. And I don't think they're preventing flowering, just removing the flower and preventing it from making seeds.

[tzaddi]

Originally Posted by LORD PUFFER

I wonder if this is part of the reason the plants are often grown under canopies, in order to prevent flowering. I know some arti-light growers will change light to prevent or induce flowering.

Tobacco plants grown under artificial or natural shade are referred to as "shade grown" as opposed to "sun grown". Growing tobacco under shade allows for larger, thinner, milder leaves often times with greater elasticity a feature important to being used as a wrapper.

Generally a cigar using "Shade grown" tobacco will be milder.

—Richard

[Infin1ty]

Very good information! How would I go about obtaining some seeds? I think it would be very fun to grow my own tobacco and then one day be able to roll my own cigarettes and cigars!

[LORD PUFFER]

Originally Posted by tzaddi

Tobacco plants grown under artificial or natural shade are referred to as "shade grown" as opposed to "sun grown". Growing tobacco under shade allows for larger, thinner, milder leaves often times with greater elasticity a feature important to being used as a wrapper.

Generally a cigar using "Shade grown" tobacco will be milder.

—Richard

I understand, but my question has to do with controlling flowering w/ light. Is that even a factor w/ tobacco. I ask because I used to grow cacti and succulents. When I was using natural sun, most weren't flowering, but when put on a sodium arti-bulb the flowers blossomed quickly. I thought that the same concept might apply for tobaccy.

[tzaddi]

I think Tiptone answered that part of it. Thanks Brian

Generally most plants are kept from going to seed by "topping" and only a select few are allowed to mature for seeds stock. As Tiptone stated it is not the intensity (sun/shade) of the light but the number of daylight hours as the growing season progresses. As a fellow gardener you are familiar with the process where successively diminishing daylight hours triggers a plants mechanism to produce flowers and seed as it senses the onset of winter. Whether that "winter" is artificial, such as controlling indoor lighting or natural.

Hope that helps. If not keep asking.

—Richard

[tzaddi]

Coming along quickly now. It won't be long now before the penny will be hidden!
What a difference a week makes

I thought I would relay a small passage from the book Tobacco written by Iain Gately, in recognition of the 400th Anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

Page 70-71

The English in the guise of the Virginia Company returned to America for the third time in 1607. This venture consisted of 144 men, of whom 105 reached the New World alive. They founded a settlement in the Chesapeake Bay which they Christened Jamestown. Only fifty-three of them lived to see it's first anniversary. A relief convoy was sent from England in 1609, composed of nine ships and 500 men under a new governor, Sir Thomas Gates. Gates was shipwrecked in Bermuda, but the remainder of the convoy reached Jamestown and set 400 men ashore. When Gates arrived in the colony six months later with two ships he had constructed in Bermuda was in ruin and its population numbered only sixty men.

It seemed that the new colony was destined to suffer the same fate as the first two. Most colonists died within a year of reaching the New World — from disease, from cold, from starvation and from conflicts with Indians who had quickly tired of having to feed them every winter. The response in England to the colonist's failure to support themselves or even stay alive was one of exasperation. They were exhorted to grow vines and weave silk and the Virginia Company which had sponsored the venture issued regulations against idleness. These included the death penalty for any colonist who missed church more than three times in a row.

However, in 1612, a breakthrough occurred, that was ultimately responsible for the pre-eminence of English culture, language and laws in the most powerful and most imitated nation in history. That year, a Virginian colonist named John Rolfe planted some seeds of Nicotiana tobacum that he had obtained from Trinidad. Two years later, he married a teenage Indian princess named Pocahontas ('the frisky one') who had attracted his eye by turning cartwheels naked through Jamestown's streets. Tobacco and love succeeded in accomplishing what sermons and orders had failed to achieve: a self-supporting English colony in America.

I hope some you have enjoyed reading this, I thank you for allowing me the space to share it.

—Richard


Naked cartwheels indeed!

[kjd2121]

Some truly hardcore times back in the 1600's. Thanks for sharing bro.