First priming of entire crop
Harvested the first 1/3 of the leaves from all the plants. I've heard many terms for this priming....viso, volado, primero.....whatever you wanna call it is fine with me. I harvested a total of 54 leaves and have them curing now.
Crop:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1952
Florida Sumatra. 15 leaves harvested, largest leaf 20" x 13"
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1954
example FS leaf:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1961
Long Red Leaf:
16 leaves harvested. largest leaf 30" x 14"
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1955
example LRL leaf:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1957
Argentina:
6 leaves harvested. largest 24" x 11"
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1951
Small Stalk Black Mammoth:
17 leaves harvested. largest, and largest of the crop, 30 1/2 " X 17"
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1953
Overall view of the harvest...not a very good pic, but you get the idea:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1960
Some ugly bastard with one of the leaves:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1959
I hung 44 of the leaves using the same air curing method that I started with. I took 10 of the leaves and am trying a different method of color curing them. I'll detail the differences in the curing thread sometime soon.
I'll most likely prime the second 1/3 of leaves next weekend.
29 August Harvest 2nd priming
Sunday I harvested the 2nd priming of all varieties. I managed to get 43 leaves. The amount of growth of the suckers was amazing....these grew in just one week between the first priming and now:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2008
Here is what I removed from the entire crop. There are also 2 leaves that were too bug damaged for processing. :smiley6:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2009
Crop before harvest:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1993
Crop after harvest:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1991
Argentina....whopping harvest. :smiley5: Largest leaf 25" x 12" (3 leaves)
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1989
Florida Sumatra. Largest 19" x 11.5" (15 leaves)
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1990
Long Red Leaf. Largest 33.5" x 13" (14 leaves)
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1992
Small Stalk Black mammoth. Largest 31" x 14" (11 leaves)
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=1994
Out with a whimper and with lessons learned
Completed the final harvest on 10 Sept after work. This harvest was disappointing....I paid the penalty for my inexperience on this one. Well, that and the 60 mph winds we had the week before. All the tiny holes became huge ones and many leaves were destroyed for curing purposes. Too much damage = too much risk of rot or mold....and I ain't into risk at this point.
Here's the crop before harvest, you can see some of the shredded leaves:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2065
Argentina harvested 3....trashed 8.....total harvested this year 12 leaves from 1 plant:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2064
Long Red Leaf harvested 7....trashed 9...total harvested 43 leaves from 4 plants:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2070
Small Stalk Black Mammoth harvested 2...trashed 13..total harvested 30 leaves from 4 plants:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2073
Florida Sumatra.....0 harvested....36 leaves trashed. These plants suffered from calcium defficiency to a higher degree than the others. This defficiency causes the leaves to "hood"....curl over from the edges to the middle, causing the leaves to rot during curing and fail to lay flat....ruins them as a wrapper, and again, too much risk of rot for me to try to cure these out. Total harvest of FS was 30 leaves from 4 plants.
The aftermath:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2063
The root systems:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2069
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/attachme...achmentid=2068
So, my overall results of the experiment were:
18 peat pods successfully yielded transplantable seedlings.
12 were planted to the field and yielded a total of 115 processable leaves.
3 were planted to large pots and grew successfully. They have not budded yet, and 0 leaves were harvested.
I have not lost any leaves during the curing process.....yet. We'll see how that goes.
I would like to extend a grateful thank you to Mark for getting this started. I have enjoyed it immensely and look forward to the curing and fermenting processes, and eventually smoking a few cigars made from these tobaccos.
Thanks for following this with me, I hope it has been enjoyable.