The Tobacco Plant Project

[Smoked!]

Seeds are in the peat pods - photos and narrative to follow.

[ashauler]

I did the jiffy pellet thingy too.....they look pretty much like Marks. I'll save my shitty photography skills until there is something for you to not see well.

[mrtr33]

....and we have germination. Very very tiny plants have started to grow of each variety. Not all of the seeds have started sprouting, and I can't reiterate how tiny these are. I'll take some pictures for reference a bit later on today.

I've been checking these plants every day since I planted them. I put them in the peat pots (actually, just on top of the peat pots) on Monday, March 8th, in the evening. I noticed that they were sprouting last night, right at the 10 day mark. I haven't watered them since I planted them. They certainly aren't dry, but they definitely aren't as moist as they were when I started. I'm going to add a little bit of water to both trays today; I may fertilize with a 10% solution this weekend. I'm just going to mist the fertilizer on with this little hand-spray mister we have.

The trays sit in a south-facing window. I'd say they get around 7-8 hours of sunlight a day in that window sill. I also try to keep the little plastic trays on them as well each day, but sometimes I have taken them off. When I first started, I noticed that mold was growing on top of the peat pellets; it appeared that the moist peat pellets, sitting in a covered tray in the sunlight, was a bit much for them, and the mold developed. Last night I just lightly scraped the mold off; it doesn't look like it really hurt anything, and the plants have started to grow.

Anyways, I'll post pics later on today. Thanks for reading.

[mrtr33]

The long awaited pictures.......before continuing, you should know that I have the worst digital camera ever. Add that to the fact that I'm the worst photographer ever, and you should be considered lucky that you can even see the pictures at all.


These are the Small Stalk Black Mammoth plants coming up.


Long Red Leaf - the peat looks drier here than it actually is.


Florida Sumatra - the peat pods the mold got on the most. It doesn't look like it, but there are very small sprouts on a few of these pods. I'm going to be watching them closely.

Just watered over lunch, and will fertilize this weekend. Will post more on Monday.

[Paddy]

We'll be rolling blunts in no time.

[dr. cox]

We'll be rolling blunts in no time.

If i knew thats what we were growing I would have joined in

Or could you mean the actual blunt cigars...nah that would be absolutely silly. We all know what's growing in the garden now.

[Smoked!]

The following consists of edited notes from the past two weeks of our growing project. Rather than bog down this thread with annoying photo documentation overkill, I edited the photo links out and posted them in the “Tomacco Seed Project – Colossal Photo Thread.” The photo relevant to each comment is referenced parenthetically.

http://www.cigarsmokers.com/threads/...852#post148852


Sunday, March 14:

First, I wish all of you a Happy Pi Day. My goal was to plant 3.14159265 seeds per pod in observance of what should be a national holiday. I’m all about days off and closing government offices as often as possible.

Today the seeds went in the peat pods. For some reason, it reminds me of the “Alien” movies. As others have stated, these are very tiny, delicate seeds. To reiterate, each labeled bag contained many tiny particles that resembled coarse dust. I was not certain if the particulate matter in question was, in fact, tobacco seed; or empty husks; or magic bean stalk seeds. Fi-fi-fo-fum. Perhaps I need spectacles. (photo thread – Seeds)

[EDIT: I took out a paragraph of silliness about enormous tobacco stalks and giants. It seemed funny at the time. Whatever.]

The plan was to set up two trays of 30 pods for a total of 60 alien incubators. That would give me 15 pods per variety of seeds, with approximately 2-3 seeds, or seed-like specks, distributed over each pod. I buy the refill pods at Squaw-Mart for two bucks per box. There were also a few left over from seasons past. (photo thread – Peat Pellets)

The best solution for my situation was to use aluminum half sheet pans for trays. They are easy to move around and they do not leak. Plus, I had several left-over pans in the pantry from an event so the price was right. They measure about 11 ½” by 9”, and hold about 35 jiffy pods. They are also deep enough to allow about 1 ½” from the top of the pod to the cover film. (photo thread – Pod Tray 1)

I hydrated the pods with a very weak mixture of filtered water and Miracle Grow liquid fertilizer. The rate was about ¼ of the recommended ratio for the typical feeding solution. I hope I don’t fry the little guys. Ain’t nothin’ worse than a tray full of fried little guys… Some of the older peat pods did not absorb the solution, so I changed them out. (photo thread – Pod Hydration Failure)

One of the best methods to sow mini-seeds is to fold card stock and funnel the seeds into place. This is perfect for carrots, broccoli, etc. I hold the card at approximately 10 – 12 degrees above the horizon and gently tap the edge of the card to roll the seed down the crease. (I suggest using a bullet level and protractor to get the angle just right. That should take up about three hours of your free time.) (photo thread – Seed Slide)


The seeds seemed to bounce down the ramp rather than rolling smoothly. I am sure I lost a few in the process. It’s OK; those were probably some kind of Mexican Jumping Tobacco anyway. Our good friend mrtr33 is an intelligent, well-educated individual. He claims to have sent only a small quantity of each variety to each of us. I believe his extensive education and academic acumen is concentrated in an area other than arithmetic. Holy Crap, man! There must be forty seeds in these packs. Maybe it just looks like forty seeds. Seriously, my eyes are bugging out from focusing.

The seed round-up:

Argentine: These remained from last year’s attempt so there are not that many of them. They are small, but manageable.

Florida Sumatra: I had a hard time with these, but there are enough to place two or three seed-like bits into each pod.

Small Stalk Black Mammoth: The mammoth seeds were easy to handle in comparison to the others and they seemed to be better formed.

Long Red Leaf: No problem with these and there were plenty to go around.

As you can see, I covered the trays with translucent ‘press and seal’ wrap. It sticks to the aluminum like glue. This provides a greenhouse environment with partial sun, high humidity, and some degree of temperature moderation by limiting air exchange. Equally important, it keeps out floaters like mold spores and weed seeds. (photo thread – Covered Trays)

The weather has been unusually cold in for March, but I think we have seen the last of it for this winter. [UPDATE: Temps this week were mid 50’s to low 70’s. That’s about ten degrees cooler than average for this time of year down here.]


Monday, 03/15 – Friday, 03/19:

Not much happened during the week - at least, not much that I could see. The wrap cover seemed to keep the humidity high enough that the pods remained moist. I sprayed them with a fine mist twice during the week. That was the only time I looked at the trays other than to shuttle them out during the day and back indoors at night.

Saturday, 03/20:

Today I exchanged the translucent wrap for clear plastic wrap to allow more sunlight on the pods. Many of the seeds have germinated and tiny sprouts are clearly visible. With a magnifying glass I can see several more that are growing, but have not yet shed the seed husk. This should provide a better evaluation of my seed distribution skills.


Here are the germination results so far (photo thread – Sprout Series):

Argentine: Germination on 12 of 15 pods.

Florida Sumatra: Germination on 9 of 15 pods.

Small Stalk Black Mammoth: Germination on 13 of 15 pods.

Long Red Leaf: Germination on 9 of 15 pods.

Summary:
My sowing skills are, well… lacking. By dumb luck some seeds fell into the center of the pods. I found a few on the mesh edges of the pod that actually sprouted. All I can do at this point is to wait and see. If I try this next year, I will use a paper funnel to better guide the seeds into place and keep the jumping beans on target. Alternatively, I may try picking up a few seeds at a time with a cotton swab, clipping the swab, and placing the seed-swab on the pods. Or I may just dump the entire bag into the tray…

It should be interesting to see how many sprouts make it to maturity. My guess is that about half will peter out before growing primary leaves. I think this crop is off to a decent start, but it is short of the typical 80% level. My eyes hurt. (photo thread – Nice Seed Placement)


Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Today I removed the cover wrap and put the mini-bacco plants outside in a protected area. I added a small amount of fertilizer solution to the bottom of the trays and gave the pods most of the day to absorb it. The pods are still saturated so I ended up pouring off about half of the mixture. I still don’t want to spray the plants directly with fertilizer. Perhaps next week they’ll look stronger. The photos below show the progress so far. You can see a few that germinated and then died off. (photo thread – Seriously?)