The Tobacco Plant Project

[Smoked!]

03.26.10

Today, the first pairs of secondary leaves appeared on three of the four varieties. The Sumatra is a little behind the others in development.




03.30.10

All four varieties now have tiny secondary leaves and are progressing ever so slowly. The Black Mammoth seedlings are the most vigorous of the plants so far. The temperature has dropped again this week. We had a strong storm front push through yesterday which brought cooler, drier air and low temps near fifty. For late March in FL, that’s cold!




03.31.10

The low temp this morning was forty-seven. I know that’s just a warm spring day for all you Yanks up in Pennsyltucky, but here it’s an arctic blast. It was so cold that I had to put on socks. Even the little tomaccos were shivering!

Normal temps should be in the mid-sixties to low eighties by the end of March. I think the cooler air is stalling plant development slightly. If these seedlings were sown outside in the soil, they would have already failed.

This weekend I plan to place the seedlings into direct sun for a couple hours each morning. After a week or so, they should be hardened off enough to take full morning sun. It should be interesting to see how quickly they respond to direct sun energy. Will they fry or accelerate? I want to see a couple more leaves kick out before I leave them out in full sunlight all day.

[mrtr33]

So, I've been slacking the last week. I meant to get these up last Thursday, because today, the plants look completely different.



The Small Stalk Black Mammoth. The one in the bottom right is Argentina. These plants, far and away, are the most hearty of the bunch.



Long Red Leaf



Florida Sumatra

I should note that when I took these photos, it was last week. I watered them immediately afterward. The plants really do look much better this week than they did then (last week).

I also wanted to update the thread with what kind of fertilizer I'm going to be using once I get the plants in the ground. This is still probably at least 45 days away, but it is something I wanted to start thinking about now. The fertilizer is called Plant-Tone, and can be found at your local gardening store. Probably won't be able to find it at a big box store, but you might. Espoma also makes a Tomato-Tone, but I can't find it anywhere locally.

Just thought I'd share. I'll try to get updated pics up soon.

[Smoked!]

I snapped a few photos showing the progress to date. Clearly, the Mammoth seeds have done best in the germination phase, but they are smaller than the other plants. Time to thin them out? Maybe... The other three varieties are about equal. See for yourself:

Argentina


Black Mammoth


Florida Sumatra


Long Red Leaf

[Smoked!]

It’s a great day for America!

Today, I stepped the tobacco plants up from pods to peat pots. Check out the survivors:

Argentina –



Florida Sumatra –



Black Mammoth –



Long Red Leaf –





My first thought was to choose two or three of each variety and carefully cultivate only the finest of the seedlings. That would probably be the most efficient, well reasoned, and easily managed solution. It would require a minimum of supplies, only little effort, and an economic expense of time.

With that understanding, and while carefully considering my options, I cracked open a cold one, counted up the supplies available (see below)… and decided to make an afternoon of it. All these little guys went in new containers today. No doubt, there will be consequences. Don’t let your friends drink and farm.

As you can see, I picked up some potting soil with a slow-release fertilizer. Seems rather like cheating, doesn’t it? The off-brand was priced roughly forty percent less than the Miracle brand. Additionally, there was only one remaining sleeve of the large size peat pots and it was priced to move, so I loaded up my cart and cheap-skated my way to the register. Here are the goods:





Potting is simple, repetitive process. I find it to be relaxing. It must have been quite a bit warmer than I imagined. A full six pack of my favorite carbonated barley-based beverage evaporated. Chalk it up to angel’s share. Check out the roots pushing through the netting on the pod.




Most of the pods have a dominant seedling that will remain when the others wither or are plucked out. There are a couple considerations. For example, the Mammoth seeds hit very close to the target of eighty percent germination and most of the pods now have strong seedlings. Once they get through the transplant shock, I can remove the weakest ones. The other varieties are less vigorous.

In most cases there is a single viable seedling. However, there are a several doubles that may both survive if I can separate them. Siamese… I mean ‘conjoined’ tomacco twins? Yeah, kinda… sorta. Look:

From the top left, working clockwise we have: twins, twins, regular, regular, weakling, and an empty. What to do, what to do… that’ll be tomorrow’s post.

[Smoked!]

Here’ the split experiment. These are the Florida Sumatra plants. I had only a few that survived, so I wanted to try to salvage as many as I could by splitting the doubles.




You can see that the siam… I mean, conjoined plants are really only intertwined at the feeder root level. The stalks are clear. To further complicate things and senselessly waste more bandwidth on photos, I decided to create an additional component to the experiment. Instead of splitting both twins, I will allow one pair to duke it out for the Championship of the Known Universe. It will be the World Tomacco Entertainment Smackdown. (Prize valid only in sectors where the Known Universe may be legally awarded, or a similar substitute prize may be awarded at the judge’s discretion. For those of you scoring the contest at home - please, no wagering.)

Yeah. I know. Friends don’t let friends drink and farm. Whatever.




Here’s the split pod. You can see the tap root is intact. If they can survive the initial shock and transplant stress, they should do as well as the other plants.




Here are the marked split containers.




But wait, there’s more!

Check out this clinger. It looks like it’s climbing up the pod to get back on top. Maybe it’s some kind of ninja tomacco…

[mrtr33]

So, I'm totally getting shown up here. Smoked! - you're the man.

Attached is my pitiful attempt. I'm kind of embarrassed. In my defense, I have yet to use any fertilizer. And we have a newborn at the house, who takes up a good bit of time. But seeing that this is the only garden we'll have in the backyard (no veggies this year), it will be my primary focus.

Mostly Black Mammoth.



My potting mix of choice.



Instead of the more precise, razor-blade cut to separate twins, I'm lazy. With all my transplants, I took the netting off - I remembered from last year that this encouraged root growth a bit better if it wasn't contained. I feel like this netting, over time, would disintegrate anyway, but I wanted to give the plants as much of a chance as possible.




Finished product. We ended up with one Argentina, one Long Red Leaf, one (small, probably diseased) and 13 Black Mammoths. Not sure what happened. I was really hoping for more Long Red Leafs, and especially more (and healthier) Florida Sumatras. Hopefully, it will come along in the next few weeks.



Long Red Leaf, Florida Sumatra, Argentina



So, as I mentioned before, this will probably be my only garden this year. I'd like it if I had 8 salvageable plants in two weeks - large enough to plant. I'm still holding off on fertilizer, rather holding out until I get them into the ground.

[Smoked!]

Nice, Mark. Looking good so far. The little sprouts will take off once they get more soil and space, as well as a dose of fertilizer. I have more pics, but no opportunity to post just yet.

Congrats again on the new arrival!