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.