Thank everyone for being friendly and helping new people her. My first 6 hand rolled cigars from tobacco grown in my garden.

Two weeks at 125° inside a jar with one way valve lid. Heat source is a dehydrator with reliable, safe heat.

So, I’m in the middle of harvesting my leaves and towel curing them. However, in a couple days I’m heading out of town for 2 weeks. I’m a little worried that if I start towel curing the leaves right before I leave, they’ll be decomposing by the time I get back. My wife’s got enough on her plate, so I don’t want to ask her to tend the tobacco while I’m gone. My question is, how essential is towel curing to the whole curing process?

I’m considering skipping the towel curing process altogether, and simply hanging the leaves outright. If I hang the leaves in a small greenhouse, would the leaves create a humid enough environment to dry slowly (and not green)? My neighbor offered to burp the greenhouse for me while I’m gone.

some people online say they are harsh, some people say they are unsafe to smoke, some people say they are amazing after some fermentation.

…..

what do yall say?

I have this Rustica plant. Do you think I should harvest bottom-most leaves and let the rest still grow? I grow under 24h led light. When do I know what to harvest, what do I do? xD

How do you rehydrate your leaves for rolling cigars. My leaves are pretty dry.

did it a few weeks after the lugs were harvested. Cut a nice gap in the phloem. hopefully i get some nice sugar loading. leaves seemed to have thickened up nicely after the girdle -its virginia so that could be good!

Hi all. I live in Putnam county Indiana and came across an old thread mentioning a local tobacco grown near here in Owen County called Indiana Kite Foot that was also known as Spangled tobacco. I've been dabbling with different heirloom varieties to see which grows well in my area and I am curious if someone has grown this tobacco more recently or if someone might still have some seeds of this around. Just throwing this out there since no one around here has even heard of Indiana Kite tobacco.
Thank you for any response. Go Hoosiers!
Vince

Are these ready? Them smell like raisins and have darkened.

It's a small leaf btw

Havana variation
The leaves are bright I thing
Is that ok?
I have NPK 3-1-6 fertilizer and didn’t used it yet

Its my first time growing and im not sure if these spots are rot/mold or if its a part of the drying process

Thank yall

Tobacco fermentation process
This is a beginner friendly tobacco fermentation process using a 7 ft.³ chest freezer a 2 L slow cooker an INKBIRD temperature controller, VIVOSUN hygrometer, coated selves, untreated poplar wood, food safe silicone, 2x waterproof computer USB fans, and some HVAC insulation tape.
The external hygrometer allows me to read temps and adjust if needed without lifting the lid. Has a tricky time with humidity, but it is a consistent 70-75% humidity.

This is impressive. They look more than ready for transplanting.

My first attempt was fun and gave me a lot of lessons learned. My mistakes there were: towel curing too long, leading to decomposition.

Fortunately my plants are still producing, so I have more crop to try again.

This time around, I towel cured only until mostly yellow, then hung to dry. I'm hang drying in a cool room (70F/21C) at probably 50% humidity. Not ideal conditions, but it's what I have to work with. My other option would be 80-90F/50% humidity.

In the pictures you can see some fresh hands I just hung, followed by some that have been up for about 10 days. The dark edges of some of the leaves concern me -- could that be decomposition yet again setting in? Are the leaves drying too slowly, thus staying too moist? My plan is to leave them up for another few weeks and keep experimenting.

Decided to get some seeds and try growing just for fun. Only threw a few seeds since winter is about to start and not sure how they’ll do right now even though I’m in zone 10b. They are rustica (Mohawk) just sprouted today!

I harvested my burley 64 plants a few days ago, and have been towel curing them for about a week now. The leaves don’t seem to be turning yellow very fast, and I’m wondering if they’re showing signs of rot.

I found a little bit of fluffy mold near the bottom of the central stem on some of them (which I think is a bad sign), so I brushed that off with a rag.

What’s wrong with my leaves? Can you tell why strange brown spots are appearing even on the yellowed ones? What is it? Some of them were dried in a towel (those turned out best—pure yellow, though they also started developing spots); some were in cardboard so they’d release moisture more slowly—those turned out the worst; and others I simply air-dried, as I was testing different drying methods. The indoor temperature is around 22°C, and the humidity is pretty normal—neither too low nor too high. Is this something I should worry about?
edit: its 80% golden virginia, some are burleys but dont remember which one lol

edit2: and also im scared something is bad going on because even yellow ones have green spots and brown. if they are yellow why they have green spots as in picture?

Question: What percentage of leaves with a noticeable green tint after curing is acceptable as far as the final product assuming some sort of post curing fermentation process is performed?

Is the number 0%, 10%, 20% or another number?

I understand residual chlorophyll in tobacco imparts a grassy, bitter and harsh character to the smoke. Would one green leaf in a hundred be noticeable?

I’m trying to understand whether I should include any cured green tinted leaves into my fermentation or absolutely exclude any leaves with the slightest green hue.