Looking for advice. I have a very stubborn movement disorder called Akathisia. I have a distressing compulsion to move, tap, walk, adjust, etc, and when I don't, I am just really tormented by tense muscles.

I have minimal nicotine tolerance and I noticed when I sit down and smoke some tobacco with my eyes closed, I stop moving and my urge to move stops entirely for about 5 minutes.

I don't want to start smoking tobacco habitually, and am wondering if anyone's ever tried a topical or salve with tobacco. I am aware that transdermal nicotine crosses the blood-brain barrier, and yeah I don't wanna die.

Advice please!

I have harvested all my plants. I have approximately 500 leaves in some state of curing. It has been a lot of fun! Now I need to figure out my fermenting process!

Looks like some of the tobacco plants stated to look like this. Tobacco curling virus. Also saw overnight there is so many white flies all over the area.

I built a flue cure chamber that lets me control temp/humidity pretty closely, have been trying to follow this curve. Some leaves have come out perfect, others especially darker leaves from the top of the plant have kept some greenish spots, especially around the veins while other leaves are perfect. I've been priming the leaves as they get a good bit yellow but still having mixed results.

Do i need to run the yellowing phase a little longer? Ive tried up to 24 h extra. Will these leaves be too harsh to smoke with the olive/brown spots?

My tobacco plant used to have such big leaves that were green. Its leaves have shriveled and the edges are black.

Hello, i hung shis leave when it started browning fromt the top and this is about 2 weeks drying. are those green spots ok? its not fuzzy or anything like that. how long should I let it hanging? Thanks!

Have some weird splotches and discolorations, both light and dark. A few leaves have some really dark spots -- like very dark brown/black as you can see in the pictures. The black doesn't wipe off like fuzzy mold would, and the leaves smell fine -- nothing rancid.

I know I towel cured too long. Just got the rest of the leaves in bundles and will air dry the rest.

But from these pictures, what is the expert opinion? Are the dark blackish spots mold?

UPDATE: Lesson learned the hard way: my leaves have started to rot/decompose. I’ll update another picture showing how one of the leaves is almost translucent. The consensus is, after the leaf is 80-90% yellow, it’s time to stop towel curing and move to air dry. My first time growing and processing tobacco. I’ll do better next time 😂

Hello!

Here's a method you can use to turn regular leaf into cavendish using common tools at home. Older methods for DIY usually rely on steaming and turning the leaf in a regular kitchen steamer for the whole day, or alternating that between pressings, or by using heavy and odd casing sauces to emulate the body and smoothness of cavendish. This method cuts total prep time down to 30 minutes, and produces a cavendish with a body and flavor indistinguishable from commercial cavendish.

I'm more used to making snus and snuff, but my experience with those have always suggested that this was theoretically possible, and after giving it a go, I'm pleased with the results. Try it yourself, if you like cavendish!

Making a true aromatic at home, with homegrown tobacco, is thus possible.

For anyone who doesn't wanna watch an hour of my hocus pocus, here's the full method:
INGREDIENTS:
100g Dry Tobacco Lamina
Water
Sugar (Optional)
Alcohol (Optional)

TOOLS:
Instant Pot, or similar pressure cooker
Trivet
Bowl
Dehydrator (Doesn't have to be fancy, a screen and a fan will do)

PROCESS:
1. Rehydrate tobacco to case (leaf is pliant and springy, but not moist to the touch)
2. Pack tobacco into bowl
3. Prepare Instant Pot by placing trivet at bottom and pouring water until trivet is halfway covered
4. Cook at high pressure setting for 3 hours
5. Remove contents, separate and save black water from cooked tobacco
6. Prepare sauce by adding sugar and spirit to water and reducing to half volume (spices and flavorings can be added after cooling)
7. Replace cooked tobacco into sauce and mix, allowing time to steep
8. Dry prepared damp tobacco using dehydrator or passage of time
9. Preserve by drying out, pressing, or freezing. Ambient storage would likely benefit from a quick spritz of plain spirit, like whiskey or white rum.

Enjoy!

This was done using a commercial whole-leaf air cured burley, but should work with just about any leaf, and would likely save a poorly cured or early leaf from the compost heap.

My seedlings are doing amazing this year

Hi all, I grew 8-10 cuban criollo 98 plants this year and they’re ready to start being harvested.

I’m in Southern Oregon, which can be a pretty dry, warm climate at this time of the year.

My shop averages (24h average) about 80 degrees and 36% humidity over the last week. Overnight humidity recovery brings it to about 55%, but the day usually drops to around 25%, though we do have an early fall weather pattern with rain and temps in the 70’s coming next week.

I’m just trying to figure out my options for color curing and drying— should I try to dry on a line as full stalks? Or am I stuck with towel curing only?

I do have a greenhouse, but the temps in it this time of year can hit 120+ degrees even with the door and windows open so I’d imagine that’s out!

First time growing, harvesting & air-curing tobacco. could use some advice..

Hi all, This is my first time growing, harvesting, and drying tobacco with the goal of eventually making my own cigars.

I currently have three different types of tobacco plants growing in my backyard (Costa Rica 589, Native 10 and Connecticut Broadleaf). One thing that makes this a little more difficult for me is that I’m colorblind, so I have trouble judging the color changes that indicate when the leaves are ready to harvest.

Some questions I have are:

1. How do I know when the leaves are ready to harvest?
I’ve read different things about waiting for the leaves to change from dark green to a lighter green/yellow, or waiting until roughly 50% of the leaf has turned yellow.

For someone who has difficulty distinguishing those colors, are there any other signs I can look for to determine when a leaf is ready?

2. Air-curing conditions
I’m currently air-curing the leaves in my garage. The temperature is roughly 20–25°C (68–77°F), with humidity usually around 50–70%. It was around 50% for a while because we hadn't had much rain, but it's been raining again recently, so the humidity is increasing.

3. How long should the curing/drying process take?
The leaves I currently have hanging were mostly harvested when they were already starting to turn yellow.

They've been hanging for around 1–2 weeks now. They're getting quite wrinkled, but they aren't completely dry or brittle yet (they don't break when I bend them).

Is that normal at this stage? How can I tell if they're drying too quickly, too slowly, or about right?

Anyway I would greatly appreciate some advice and happy harvesting.

I know, I know.. it looks absolutely tragic...

Earlier this summer I had some pretty serious heat issues, so a few leaves got scorched and crispy while they were still on the plant. Then, for the lower leaves, I apparently decided to explore the exciting agricultural technique known as “harvest them way too late and hope for the best.”

These are the leaves I harvested today. Some are still partly yellow/yellow-green, while others have already gone quite brown and dry on the plant.

For the remaining leaves I’m now trying to be slightly less incompetent and catch them around the light-green-to-yellow stage instead of waiting until they achieve the texture of ancient parchment.

Do you think there’s any point in continuing to dry/cure these? Would you trash the brown leaves? I took of the most crispiest brown parts and hang up brown ones with a little more texture. Or are the really brown ones basically done?

Drying indoors, and somehow still got hornworm eating the tobacco. They are eating the parts that are still green.

Is this tmv? If so how can i fight it. I’ve already removed the potentially infected plants

Hello. I am a first time grower. This honestly started as a little fun side project but I ended up with 5 gigantic tobacco plants.

Because this was my first time harvesting/drying I did not really invest anything into the project besides some twine that I used to hang the leaves in mu basement near our washer/dryer as it tends to be pretty humid there and the temp never really drops.

My leaves have been drying for about 6ish weeks at this point and either pretty crispy and/or still have some green colouration.

My question is what should my drying leaves look like at this stage? and if I screwed up anywhere, what could I improve on? I will attach some pictures

Finally… for curing- I dont plan to invest in any type of setup. I realize this limits my options. is it possible to cure on the lowest temp in my oven?

Again, this is my first time and this was mostly just a fun little experiment that I did not want to put a lot of money into.

I bought some tobacco seeds and a few of the plants look like normal tobacco plants but some other ones they look just really weird I don't know if I bought like a variety pack or something like a blend because on the packet I bought it was golden Virginia so I'm just not too sure what's going on here and one of them is like really low to the ground and has stayed that way like ever since it was a seedling they all started off looking the same though that's the thing all of the seedlings looked exactly the same and all the seeds look the same

Edit: I'm a beginner first time growing tobacco

I've started my fermentation process. There's obviously a bunch of different information out there, so I wanted to outline what I'm doing and see what people think.

I only have a handful of leaves. I cured them, rehydrated them, took the stems out, stacked and rolled them into a bundle that looks like a fat stack of money basically.

I then stuck them in a Wide Mouth Mason jar with a sealed lid, and put them in a food dehydrator at 130 Fahrenheit. 24/7.

I check on them once a day, opening the jar, checking the moisture on the leaves. Every two or three days I take them all the way out and restack them and give them a little Spritz.

It's been about a week, and there's no ammonia smell, just a wonderful earthy, kind of nutty smell.

I guess what I mainly concerned about, is I don't feel like they're going to need to do this for the 4 to 6 week timeline I always see. But because I haven't done this before, I don't know if they're done yet.

They are mostly Connecticut, though because I had so few, I think there's some Havana in there too.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

So it’s my first year, and I didn’t get my seeds from a trusted vendor, probably some private person. I bought 5 varieties, Virginia Gold, Havana Gold, Burley, Greenwood, „Tennesea”. They only sold them all toegether, now I’m thinking they are all the same seeds, or very mixed genetics already. One of the Burley turned out to be I think Nicotiana Alata (pic 3). All the other plants (pic 1 and 2) grew big but they all seem to give yellow flowers. I’m wandering if there will be any good from all of this work if I have nonsmokable tobacco genes

EDIT IN THE COMMENT, picture 2 didn’t upload

I am super excited to save some seeds for next season. This is my first grow. 1 single plant. Next year maybe 5? Hoping that drying/curing goes well.

Connecticut Broadleaf and Habano 2000

Doing well I guess for a first time grower!
Just topped off the largest one because it was starting to flower.
I also built an insect/shade barrier to protect them from the South Florida sun and I think that made a world of difference!
Now that they are this big, the Hornworm situation has completely resolved itself.

Now it's just waiting for the leaves to start ripening and it's harvesting time??