u/WinChunKing

I am satisfied with the purchase, this will make some great blends. The tobacco itself is quite strong, perfect for folks who like strong blends. It's not comparable to lemon or bright leaf which is kind of mild and boring, this tobacco has some kick and personally.

The tobacco is nice and moist, plenty of lamina to stem ratio, it's just more work as the material is not nearly sorted, leaves are in pieces and broken stems. Definitely worth it for 45$ for 5lbs.

In the picture is about 1/3 of the 5lbs. cleaned up. I've got more to go. Once having removed all the stems and stem pieces it will be much more practical to weight and use when I need to make some blends. The tobacco is surprisingly dark, smells really good and smokes amazing once it's been aired out a bit. It's pretty strong by itself for a Virginia, it has a decent impact, throat hit and nicotine content.

Everything turned out great. Orinoco was fun to grow but very stubborn to colour cure. Final colour reminds me of some rusticas, an ugly kind of grey/brown. Stag Horn and Bosikappal were a charm, easy to colour cure and a beautiful dark brown final colour. The Bosikappal already has a potent, sweet and malted smell this early in the process.

Threshed Virginia 40%, Samsun Oriental 30%, Kentucky burley 15%, Dark air cured 15%. This should be super fragrant without being too weak in the nicotine and throat hit department.

Picture #1 Bosikappal. Picture #2 OG Orinoco. I got a decent amount of Stag Horn but it's already threshed. It had cured well but turned crispy and had huge stems that were taking forever to dry so I did a hand crush and pulled out the stems at the same time to avoid even the slightest possibility of mold.

Have an amazing end of harvest/post harvest work everyone. See you for the next one. I'll be doing GC-1 and Little yellow, sowing on April 1st 2027.

All and all was an excellent and fun season. The Bosikappal is my all time favourite of the last 6 years. It's an amazing looking plant that has a surprisingly good yield. It cured super well and smells amazing already. Stag Horn is amazing, grows huge, excellent yield and easy to cure. It makes my list of possible regrows. Orinoco was the black sheep this year. It was slow to start, slow to grow and has a very low yield for the time it takes to grow. It cured ok but wasn't easy. I ended up with quite a few smaller, uncured leaves that I tossed. It has a great story but I wouldn't grow it again, the yield is not worth the time and effort put into growing it. I'll be leaving all the tobacco in bins for a few weeks and bag it to age down the road. It will sit 12-18 months keeping my rotation stash well stocked with yearly additions since 2021. Next up, I'll be doing GC-1, Little yellow and more Bosikappal next year.

Apart from the white flies infestation and a mould scare on the Stag Horns everything went according to plan. A perfect run is impossible, there's always something that's going to happen, which is why very close monitoring is key.

I decided to threshe the Stag Horns because the stems were huge and still very wet even if the lamina itself was ready. The wet stems were causing some white fuzz on the lamina when the leaves were hanging. I took them down, put them in the blazing sun today and then took them in and did a manual crush and picked out all the stems and tossed them.

This is the Bosikappal. I put the lid on to keep natural heat inside and I will be putting the bins outside in the sun lid on to add some heat. The lids also make it easy to shake the leaves around. In the past years I was using cardboard boxes, worked ok but these bins are an upgrade, they keep more heat in and will last for a lifetime. The Orinoco and Stag Horn needs more time on the line.

I'm doing it slowly, no rush. I'll do the Orinocos and Stag Horns next week as they have a bit of curing/drying left to do.

The flies are not damaging the leaves but it's just super annoying considering this cure room is in my apartment. I shook the lines to get some to drop/fly away and brushed a ton of them off. When the leaves are fully cured and dry I'll give them a final brush before putting them in bins. Everything else is going well...it's almost impossible to have a tobacco run from seed to smoke with zero surprises. I can live with this one, it's annoying but manageable.