Hi --
I started this thread to help people grow their own tobacco at home and stop paying the outrageous taxes that make it so expensive.
I was posting on the older thread called "anyone grow tobacco" or something like that, but it looks like it pretty much petered out.
I will start with a very quick overview and go into more details later. Please ask me as many questions as you like and I'll try to answer them. I'll be watching this thread daily and now that my harvest is in and dried, I'm fairly free to respond.
Tobacco is an annual crop that is generally field grown. The seeds are started indoors 6-7 weeks before the last average frost date in most parts of the US, much like tomatoes, and transplants are planted in the field usually 2 feet apart in the row, with rows 3 feet apart. You can grow tobacco successfully in a suburban setting in 4-5 gallon pots.
There are many strains or varieties of tobacco which are grown for specific uses. Some are used in cigarettes, others as cigar or pipe tobacco. There are chew, dip, snus, snuff and specialty tobaccos you can grow.
The plants range from 6 - 8 feet tall and you can expect to harvest 16-18 mature, 2-3 foot long leaves from each plant. A good estimate for the final dry weight is 3 oz per plant. To put this in perspective, a pound of tobacco usually yields about 2-1/2 cartons of cigs. Roughly 6 oz of tobacco per carton. The cost of growing and preparing tobacco for use generally totals about $3 a lbs not including capital costs. This makes the price of a carton of cigarettes at over $50 look even more ridiculous! That's an increase from $3 a lbs to $125 a lbs at commercial prices including the punishment taxes!
Tobacco is harvested either by cutting and hanging the whole stalk or by what is called "priming", pulling the bottom-most leaves as they start to yellow. After the leaves are hung, they change from green to yellow/brown in a process called "color-curing". After this, they are generally dried in hotter, less humid conditions until they are completely dried and are ready for storing and aging/curing.
Curing the dried tobacco can be as easy as boxing it up and waiting about a year, or as complex as building an insulated kiln which is temp/humidity controlled and takes about a month to "ferment" the tobacco until it is smooth to smoke.
Tobacco does not go stale or bad with age. It improves. The reason that commercial cigs go "stale" is because of the additives they put in them which are organic oils and those will become rancid over time.
Processing tobacco depends on the use required. You can shred it finely for cigs. More roughly for cigars. Very rough cut for chew. You can grind it for dip/snuff/snus. You can flavor it with honey or other sweet stuff, or with whiskey, cherry or almost flavor you like!
That's a basic overview of tobacco plant culture and processing. The next thing I'll try to write about is germinating/starting the seeds indoors. Tobacco seeds are very tiny. 1/10th of a gram is about 1000 seeds. Starting the seeds isn't hard, but some care must be taken to protect the tiny plants.
I hope this is valuable for everyone here interested in growing their own tobacco at home.
Thanks!
Bob Kemp
[email protected]
I started this thread to help people grow their own tobacco at home and stop paying the outrageous taxes that make it so expensive.
I was posting on the older thread called "anyone grow tobacco" or something like that, but it looks like it pretty much petered out.
I will start with a very quick overview and go into more details later. Please ask me as many questions as you like and I'll try to answer them. I'll be watching this thread daily and now that my harvest is in and dried, I'm fairly free to respond.
Tobacco is an annual crop that is generally field grown. The seeds are started indoors 6-7 weeks before the last average frost date in most parts of the US, much like tomatoes, and transplants are planted in the field usually 2 feet apart in the row, with rows 3 feet apart. You can grow tobacco successfully in a suburban setting in 4-5 gallon pots.
There are many strains or varieties of tobacco which are grown for specific uses. Some are used in cigarettes, others as cigar or pipe tobacco. There are chew, dip, snus, snuff and specialty tobaccos you can grow.
The plants range from 6 - 8 feet tall and you can expect to harvest 16-18 mature, 2-3 foot long leaves from each plant. A good estimate for the final dry weight is 3 oz per plant. To put this in perspective, a pound of tobacco usually yields about 2-1/2 cartons of cigs. Roughly 6 oz of tobacco per carton. The cost of growing and preparing tobacco for use generally totals about $3 a lbs not including capital costs. This makes the price of a carton of cigarettes at over $50 look even more ridiculous! That's an increase from $3 a lbs to $125 a lbs at commercial prices including the punishment taxes!
Tobacco is harvested either by cutting and hanging the whole stalk or by what is called "priming", pulling the bottom-most leaves as they start to yellow. After the leaves are hung, they change from green to yellow/brown in a process called "color-curing". After this, they are generally dried in hotter, less humid conditions until they are completely dried and are ready for storing and aging/curing.
Curing the dried tobacco can be as easy as boxing it up and waiting about a year, or as complex as building an insulated kiln which is temp/humidity controlled and takes about a month to "ferment" the tobacco until it is smooth to smoke.
Tobacco does not go stale or bad with age. It improves. The reason that commercial cigs go "stale" is because of the additives they put in them which are organic oils and those will become rancid over time.
Processing tobacco depends on the use required. You can shred it finely for cigs. More roughly for cigars. Very rough cut for chew. You can grind it for dip/snuff/snus. You can flavor it with honey or other sweet stuff, or with whiskey, cherry or almost flavor you like!
That's a basic overview of tobacco plant culture and processing. The next thing I'll try to write about is germinating/starting the seeds indoors. Tobacco seeds are very tiny. 1/10th of a gram is about 1000 seeds. Starting the seeds isn't hard, but some care must be taken to protect the tiny plants.
I hope this is valuable for everyone here interested in growing their own tobacco at home.
Thanks!
Bob Kemp
[email protected]
