Starting and Growing Tobacco from Seeds. New Hope Seed Company: Bringing back old tobacco varities from days gone by. No hybrids... No GMO's

Good plan.

I live in a cold area - short growing season, but knew a couple people growing their own tobacco.

It's an amazingly beautiful plant and if I weren't in an apartment, I'd have my own tobacco patch.

LOL...speaking as someone who grew tobacco most of my adult life, your post makes it sound like growing carrots or any other vegetable. Tobacco can hardly be grown these days without a lot of special chemicals and tons of petrol based fertilizer. It is a nasty, stinking weed far worse than Marijuana. I'm glad it is about gone from Kentucky.

Harvesting and Curing

Due to the needs for proper harvesting and curing tobacco, there is very little home or garden production of tobacco for personal use. Another deterrent to home production of tobacco is the need to age the cured tobacco for one to three years or longer. The following suggestions are not based on any experience or research information, but are only the opinion of the writer. However, some producers of home-grown leaf have developed harvesting and curing techniques that are satisfactory for them and often they share their experiences with others.

Tobacco may be cured with heat added or it may be air cured. There does not appear to be any practical means for the gardener to use heat to cure the tobacco because of the facilities that are required. Again, some producers of home-grown tobacco have built curing facilities and may offer them for sale. Tobacco could be cured without heat if a building with good air circulation is available. Temperatures for air curing may range from 60-65°F up to 90-95°F, and the relative humidity of the air should be about 65-70 percent. Proper curing should take a few weeks in order to have good quality. Tobacco that cures too fast will be green and not have good aroma and flavor, while mold or rot may develop if curing is slow. A building that can be opened and closed as needed to control the relative humidity and drying rate is desirable. Curing procedures need to be developed for individual situations.

Harvesting could be accomplished by either removing leaves from the stalk in the field and curing them or by cutting the stalk off at ground level and hanging the entire stalk in the curing facility for the leaves to cure. The leaves would then be removed from the stalk after they have cured. If the leaves are removed in the field, there should be four or five harvests at intervals of 1-2 weeks, starting with the lower leaves. The first harvest would be at or soon after topping and when the leaves show a slight yellowing. If the entire stalk is cut for curing, it should be about 3-4 weeks after topping. The lower leaves would be partially deteriorated at this time. Provide adequate space between stalks to allow for satisfactory drying of the leaves.
Aging

All commercial tobacco is aged for a year or more before it is used. Unaged tobacco is harsh and does not have good flavor. For the home gardener, aging will probably be as difficult or even more so than proper curing. Aging may require as long as 5-6 years and does not occur unless temperature and moisture conditions are favorable. If the tobacco is too dry, there is no aging and if it is too moist, there will be decay of the leaves. Unfortunately the proper temperature and moisture content vary widely. The home producer would need the knowledge and skill to properly age the tobacco or be willing to experiment with the tobacco. The same would be true for adding flavoring agents during or after aging and before the tobacco is used.

Mine is growing well, about knee high, after 3 months, no chemicals, just dirt and rabbit droppings.

I will say germination was really low. Probably one in 100 seeds sprouted. I'm going to have to figure that out!

Tobacco also make great ornamentals. These are big, good looking flowering plants...

Cool. Yeah mine sprouted in my greenhouse then died. Too much heat too early. I'll try again next year........looks like they are tougher to get started than I thought.....

Yup, we started them this year too. and they're growing well, we have them planted in the front garden here in the UK! i never thought they would grow ok here with the climate and all the weather being upside down! amazing!

I don't think you ever grew tobacco. Shabby description.:tom-false:

Sure each plant needs some dusting of protective powder every week. Tobacco has coarse pleasant enough appearance and gets bugs as big potato beetles many cases.

Has a neutral odor if any at all growing.

something interesting which the PC press won't ever mention is tobacco plants have an ability to clean the soil. soil which has been contaminated is cleaned as the roots of the plant grabs its nutrition. The hopes were to use tobacco to clean up contaminatednd like where oil spills from autos etc have happened.

Plants become green Mr. Clean to combat toxic messes
The trick to make a common laboratory plant – like tobacco – into a janitor is ... The plants and soil microbes can then convert the toxins to more benign chemicals.

[link to www.eurekalert.org]

I started Deleware Indian Sacred that I got from www.rareseeds.com
Everyone out of two dozen sprouted. Have turned out to be healthy little plants. I am anxious to try some other varieties they have.

I grew some dargold (think that was the name of it) one year for hubby. He said it was the raspiest, nastiest junk he ever smoked.

Nice thread OP

Actually, tobacco does grow like a weed and like any farm-produced crop, the fields receive tons of fertilizers and other chemicals as you suggest there is no difference. I first grew a couple of tobacco plants in large pots on my back porch and they thrived one I trimmed back so it would not seed and the leaves would broaden and the second I allowed to seed.

The added benefit was to my porch grown tomatoes, cilantro and mint plants was the tobacco plants like marigolds repelled insects.

Further Kentucky still grows plenty of tobacco plants.

Kentucky

Nearly 1/2 of Kentucky is farmland with livestock accounting for almost 2/3 of the income. However the most valuable source to Kentucky is race horses. Tobacco, corn, and soybeans make up the remaining 3rd of the states income.

[link to xserve.catawba.k12.nc.us]

growing is fairly easy, the problem is what you get isnt anything like what youre used to.

natural unprocessed tobacco doesnt smell or taste any different from burning whatever leaves you have on your lawn now.
It's nothing like what you expect to get

It looks like it's time to bump this ole' thread again, seeing as how Oz is thinking of charging £40A for a pack of ciggies.

Starting and Growing Tobacco from Seeds.
[link to www.newhopeseed.com]


"Starting seeds"

Tobacco is a relatively easy plant to grow and can be grown as far north as Canada and Alaska with the proper planning and preparation.

Tobacco seeds are extremely small (Fig. 1) not much larger than a pin prick and care should be taken when sowing seed as to not sow to thickly. Tobacco seed require warm temperatures for germination of about 75-80 degrees. Seed should be started indoors 4-6 weeks before your last frost date. Start by sprinkling the tobacco seed onto the surface of a sterile seed starting mix and lightly water in. Do not cover the seed with any soil as they need light for germination and covering can slow down germination time or if covered too deeply the seed won't germinate at all, watering in lightly is all that is needed.

Seed will begin to germinate in about 7-10 days with some tobacco varieties taking a few days longer to begin germination (Fig. 2). If your seed don't germinate right away be patient, it can take up to 2 weeks for some tobacco varieties to germinate.

The soil should be kept damp but not too soggy and should never be allowed to dry completely out. Care should be taken when watering freshly emerging tobacco seedlings because the force of the water can uproot the tiny seedlings causing them to die.

"Transplanting into trays/flats"

The next step is to transplant the tobacco seedlings into a larger container such as a pot or transplant cell tray as seen in Fig. 3. so that they can develop a good root system.
Under normal conditions the tobacco seedlings will be large enough and ready for moving into pots or cells after 3 weeks from the beginning of germination.
I normally prefer to wait until the plants largest leaf is close to the size of a dime before transplanting into cells because it is easier handling for me but seedlings can be moved anytime after they reach a size you are comfortable working with.

Transplanting into containers is easily accomplished by making a small hole into the soil and inserting the roots of the tobacco seedling and backfilling the hole with a little soil mix. Once you have them potted in, water in with a plant starter fertilize solution such as miracle grow or seaweed/fish fertilize emulsions.

The initial fertilizing you gave at the potting stage should be sufficient food for the plants until they reach transplanting stage, (Fig. 4) which normal takes approximately 3-4 weeks. If your plants begin to yellow or look stunted another dose of fertilize may be needed but do so sparingly, over fertilization while in pots or trays may burn the plant's roots and may also lead to overgrown spindly plants.

Tobacco plants are considered 'transplantable plants' meaning they, like tomato plants, can be planted bare root with out the need for any soil attached to the roots. If you have large containers or seedling flats you can sow the seed very thinly and leave the seedlings there until they reach the size for transplanting outdoors and pull the plants and transplant directly into your garden.

This is a much easier way to to do it but also has it's drawbacks. Once planted, bare root the plants will go through a sort of 'transplant shock' where some or most of the largest leaves may yellow and wilt and the plant may appear it is going to die, but it will not, the main stem and bud of the plant will continue to strive and in a week or so will begin to grow and flourish. By growing your seedlings in containers or celled trays there is no transplant shock and plants begin to grow immediately.

If you are growing your tobacco seedlings in a greenhouse or indoors they should be "hardened off" before you transplant into your field or garden, but is not always necessary as long as your plants are not spindly and weak and weather conditions are favorable. This period allows the plant to adjust to outdoor weather conditions. A week of hardening off should be ample time but 2 weeks is even better.


General note if planting more than one tobacco variety

Tobacco is considered a self pollinating plant meaning it has the ability to fertilize it's own flowers without the aid of insects. But different tobacco varieties planted close to one another can and will become crossed by insects such as moths, etc. that commonly visit the plants flowers. Tobacco can also become cross pollinated by wind although at a much lesser degree than by insects. To keep tobacco varieties pure, isolation of one mile is needed between different varieties to insure continued variety purity is maintained or other preventive cross pollination methods should be used if isolation distance is a problem.

"Transplanting into garden"

Tobacco is a heavy feeder and if grown continuously in the same spot will deplete the nutrients in the soil. So to counteract this it is wise to employ a 2 year rotation in your growing space by planting 2 years in a specific location and waiting a year or more before you plant your tobacco back into that location again. Tobacco also requires good amounts of nitrogen and potash both of which can be achieved with a good compost but we recommend a good garden fertilizer if you do not have or use compost.

Space the tobacco plants 2-3 feet apart in the row and space rows 3 1/2 - 4 feet apart when it is practical. Water the plants thoroughly once transplanted and if no rain or dry weather is forecast, water each evening for a few days till plants become established.

The roots of tobacco grow quickly and the root structure is quite large with thousands of small hair like feeder roots that grow close to the soil surface. Care should be taken when cultivating as not to till or hoe too deep and damage the roots.
Keep the tobacco clean and free of all weeds and a few good hoeings by pulling up soil around the base of the plant will help in strengthening the plant. The structure of a tobacco plant's leaves enables the plant to make use of light rains and heavy dews by collecting and funneling the water down to the base of the plant as can be seen in Fig. 5 by the wet soil.

After 3-4 weeks from planting heavy deep tilling should be stopped (Fig 6) and only light scrapings to control weeds should be done.

Diseases and Insects

There are many insects and diseases that can attack tobacco.
Here in Tennessee, two of the prominent insect pest are the hornworm and aphid.
More information on insects and diseases can be found on our tobacco links page.

Last Edited by Judethz on 11/24/2015 04:16 AM