What is the best smoking tobacco to grow for smoking?

The content of the article:

• The benefits of growing tobacco at home.
• How to start growing tobacco in the garden?
• Video.

Unfortunately, there is a huge percentage of people who smoke in Russia. People cannot give up their bad addiction in any way, which harms not only the person who smokes, but also his environment. According to VTsIOM, about 1/3 of all Russians smoke. 75% of men and 21% of women smoke regularly. These are terrifying statistics. The worst thing is that the percentage of women who smoke has increased in recent years.

We urge you to quit smoking. This is a habit that is killing you from the inside out.

This article is dedicated to people who smoke who cannot quit smoking in any way. Who have already tried to quit many times and have tried all the methods. There is a great solution for you - growing tobacco at home. This business is extremely exciting and interesting. Subject to all the rules of cultivation, the finished product is of very high quality. This is not comparable to what we buy in stores under the guise of tobacco and cigarettes.

Tobacco companies openly poison smokers by adding toxic chemicals to cigarettes to reduce the final cost of the product. At the same time, the price of tobacco products in stores is increasing every month.

For reference. The cost of 1 pack of cigarettes is from 1 to 5 rubles per pack.

A conclusion can be drawn from all this. Tobacco companies poison smokers for a lot of money, making just fabulous capital!

A bit of math. In 2016, the average price for a pack of cigarettes is 75-80 rubles. The average smoker smokes 10-20 cigarettes a day (0.5-1 packs). 80 * 365 = 29,200 rubles. That is, the average smoker spends on cigarettes per year 15-35 thousand rubles... But this money can be spent with considerable benefit.

The benefits of growing tobacco at home.

Growing and processing tobacco in the garden does not incur any costs (other than the initial cost of purchasing seeds). After you have received the first harvest, you no longer need to buy cigarettes in the store every day, spending a lot of money on it. You yourself will have a very huge amount of tobacco, which is not only enough for yourself, but you can also treat your friends.

But the most important thing is that the product will be natural, which means it will not be so harmful.

Growing tobacco is a hobby during which a person rests. There is something sacred in this. You will feel like a Cuban tobacco baron. In this article we will tell you everything about growing tobacco, you will learn the whole process - from A to Z. Everything will be accompanied by visual videos, it will be very easy to figure it out.

How to start growing tobacco in the garden?

How to start growing tobacco in your garden? This question is asked by many novice tobacco growers. Let's try to figure it out. It is necessary to decide on the variety, prepare containers for planting seedlings, prepare the soil for planting seedlings.

The choice of the variety.

First of all, you need to decide which variety or varieties to grow in your garden. There are a huge number of different varieties. For beginner tobacco growers, universal varieties, such as Virginia 202 or Herzegovina Flora, are best suited.

Virginia 202.

Tobacco Variety: Virginia 202

Description... Virginia 202 is a very common tobacco variety that grows well in Russia in various climatic zones. The advantage of this variety is the low content of various harmful resins. At the same time, it has a very pleasant sweetish taste. Virginia 202 tobacco is one of the most widespread varieties in the world and is cultivated everywhere. It was bred in Russia, in the Krasnodar Territory. Read more: Virginia Tobacco 202.

Tobacco Herzegovina Flora.

Photo: Tobacco Herzegovina Flor.

Herzegovina Flora tobacco is Stalin's favorite tobacco. Iosif Vissarionovich himself spoke about this while smoking his pipe. Herzegovina flora is a very common variety. Possesses very good taste and aroma qualities. The leaves are of moderate strength. Perfect for beginners.

Planting tobacco seeds for seedlings.

The homeland of tobacco is South America. The plant is thermophilic and ripens quite late. Therefore, on the territory of Russia, tobacco should be planted first on seedlings. The timing of planting seedlings is early spring. Seedlings can be planted throughout March.

Seeds should be planted in small containers. Disposable cups are very suitable for these purposes. A hole is made in the cups from the bottom to create drainage. Place a small layer of small pebbles or eggshells on the bottom.

After preparing the container, it is necessary to prepare the soil. Tobacco grows well only on fertile soil. It is advisable to buy a special universal soil for seedlings in the store. With this soil, you need to mix the usual disinfected soil from the garden in a ratio of 1 to 1. Add a little wood ash to the resulting mixture. The earth must be disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate.

Will go directly to planting agricultural technology. There are several points here. Tobacco seeds are very small and inconvenient to work with. You need to be very careful. Before sowing, water the soil well in a cup with warm water. Then gently pour the seeds evenly out of the bag into the container. Sprinkle with earth on top with a layer of no more than 1 millimeter.

Cover the container tightly with polyethylene and place in a warm place. The tobacco grows within 3-5 days. As soon as the first bores begin to appear, the film must be removed and placed in a bright place, for example, on a windowsill.

Tobacco seedling care.

Let's talk about caring for tobacco seedlings at home.

Leaving before the pick.

Before picking, caring for tobacco seedlings is extremely simple. Immediately after the appearance of the first shoots, you need to remove the film and put the container with seedlings on a light windowsill, preferably on the south side. If this is not done, then the seedlings will be very stretched and will grow very poorly.

You constantly need to monitor the moisture content of the soil, as soon as it is dry, it should be watered with settled water at room temperature. It is highly discouraged to water the plants with cold water.

Periodically, containers with seedlings need to be turned to the sun with the other side. This will ensure uniform growth and prevent stretching.

Picking tobacco into separate cups.

Tobacco pick

Tobacco pick Is the process of planting seedlings at a normal distance from each other.

It is recommended to dive tobacco when 2-3 permanent leaves begin to appear in plants. It is possible later, but then the growth of seedlings will slow down.

Growing tobacco without picking is simply impossible. The seeds are very small and the seedlings are very frequent. Tobacco grows quickly enough and the seedlings begin to interfere with each other's growth. As a result, the seedlings are very weak and elongated.

It is best to dive the tobacco into separate containers. For these purposes, it is best to use plastic disposable cups. For tobacco seedlings, they are spacious; in separate containers, the plants will grow better. It will then be convenient to plant seedlings from plastic cups in open ground. Read more in the article: Tobacco picking.

Leaving after a pick.

It is necessary to dive tobacco seedlings when 2-3 true leaves appear. By this time, the plants will grow tightly in one container. Plants dive into disposable cups, 1-2 pieces in one cup.

Photo

After picking, it is advisable to water the tobacco every day until it takes over in a new place.

Photo

Two weeks after the pick, the tobacco seedlings should be fed. You can use both organic and mineral fertilizers. The most important thing is that they contain a lot of nitrogen. Liquid chicken manure is great. Use it in proportions of 1:10 with water. If the growth of the seedlings does not satisfy you, then you can make another feeding with chicken droppings a week after the first. If there is a risk that the seedlings will outgrow, then the second feeding is not necessary.

Photo: Growing tobacco for smoking

Before planting in open ground, the seedlings should be hardened a little. At first, just open the window in the room with seedlings more often, and a week before disembarking, take it out to the balcony or veranda. Do not water for a week.

Growing mode of tobacco seedlings

Tobacco is a rather thermophilic culture, so when growing, you should adhere to a certain temperature. The ideal temperature is 18-24 degrees. It should be adhered to.

Planting tobacco in open ground.

Photo: Growing tobacco from seeds in the garden for smoking

An important procedure is the planting of tobacco in the open ground.

Seedlings of tobacco are grown on windowsills until the threat of frost is completely over. Then it must be planted in a permanent place. Seedlings of tobacco are planted either under a film, or directly into open ground. When planting, it is very important to comply with all agricultural measures so that the plants begin and immediately begin active growth.

The first step is to decide on the location. It is best to make the bed on a slight slope to avoid excessive accumulation of water. Also, the place should be protected from strong winds.

If you have a small plot and it is not possible to allocate a whole garden bed for tobacco, then you can plant the plants right along the fence in one row. You will get a kind of living fence that will look very beautiful.

It is not at all necessary for tobacco to plow the soil. The site will only need to be well cleared of weeds and loosened a little with a Fokin flat cutter.

Previously, the site for tobacco needs to be fed. Rotted compost is best suited for these purposes. 0.5-1 bucket of compost is added to 1 square meter of area.

After selecting and preparing the site, you can proceed directly to planting in open ground. The tobacco is planted at a distance of 20-50 centimeters from each other, depending on the variety. You need to dig holes in the garden. They should be quite deep - 20-30 centimeters. Pour a little rotted compost at the bottom and pour it very abundantly with warm water (at least 0.5 buckets of water per hole).

Now we very carefully remove the plants from the containers, put them in the hole and cover them with earth. It is better to plant tobacco a little deeper than it grew in a glass. It is advisable to mulch the land around the plant (although this is not necessary). It remains only to pour the planted tobacco with warm water. Read more in the article: Planting tobacco in open ground.

Watering tobacco in the open field.

Watering after planting in open ground. Immediately after planting the seedlings in the open ground, tobacco is abundantly watered with warm water. Then watered about 1 time per week.

Watering, a month after planting. Plants that are most demanding on moisture become one month after planting in open ground.It is after this time that a very active formation of organic plant tissues begins. During this period, tobacco should be watered every 3-4 days at the rate of 10 liters per 1 square meter of land.

Watering 2 months after planting. From this time on, watering should be minimized. Moisture becomes less important, and the weather outside becomes more humid, especially at night. Watering should be done only if the soil is noticeably dry.

These tips are not universal, they are only general guidelines. You should always be guided by the weather conditions and the climate of your area.

Read more: Watering tobacco in the open field.

Top dressing of tobacco in the open field.

Fertilizing tobacco after planting in open ground should be done with nitrogen-containing fertilizers. Plants need a large amount of nitrogen immediately after planting to start growing a large amount of green mass, and this directly depends on the yield. It is very important not to skip this growth phase and feed them on time.

Tobacco is fed 7-10 days after planting in open ground. Any complex fertilizer with a priority nitrogen content can be used as a fertilizer. Urea is excellent for these purposes. For feeding, 1 tablespoon of fertilizer is stirred in 10 liters of water and watered at the root.

Read more in the article: Top dressing of tobacco in the open field.

Tobacco picking and punching.

Photo: Shaping tobacco in the garden

Stepsons grow between the leaves. As a rule, a stepson grows between each leaf. They should be removed when they grow by about 1.5-2 centimeters. If this procedure is performed earlier, then there is a high probability that they will grow again. Doing double work is unnecessary, especially if you have planted a lot of plants.

The most convenient way to remove stepchildren is with scissors.

Tobacco usually begins to let stepchildren start from the moment the flowering begins. You need to watch and not miss the moment.

Tobacco shaping is the removal of flowers at the bud stage. This procedure is also done in order to get a larger list of goods. Due to edging, tobacco leaves become much stronger, the nicotine content in them increases.

Peduncles should be removed at an early stage of budding.

Read more: Passing and growing tobacco.

Harvesting tobacco.

Photo: Ripe tobacco leaves

It is very easy to determine the ripeness of a tobacco leaf. The central vein turns white. The edges of the leaf turn slightly yellow, and the middle takes on a dull green color. It is very important not to miss this period and to rip off the leaf, otherwise it will overripe, its quality will greatly deteriorate.

The tobacco is harvested from the bottom up as the leaves ripen.

Read more: Harvesting tobacco.

Growing tobacco in the garden for smoking is a very entertaining and exciting business. Once you've harvested and tasted it, you no longer want to buy poison in the store.

Video.

Video: Growing tobacco from A to Z. A very visual video about growing tobacco at home from seeds:

This is a whole film dedicated to the cultivation of tobacco.

Another video:

Video:

The topic is immense, read also:

 

Growing tobacco or makhorka is not difficult at all. We are often asked about this process, and, combining personal experience with the advice of experienced ones, including our readers, we decided to publish this material. I must say that the process of growing tobacco is not much different from growing, for example, tomatoes. But still, growing tobacco, you need to know certain features of this plant. This is what our publication is about.

Content:

• General information about the tobacco plant
• Should you grow tobacco?
• Features of growing tobacco
• Tobacco pests and diseases
• Tobacco drying and fermentation

General information about the tobacco plant

Tobacco (Nicotiana) is a genus of perennial and annual plants of the Solanaceae family. Grown to obtain raw materials used in tobacco products.In culture, the following types are most often found:

• Ordinary tobacco, or Virginia Tobacco, or Real Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). The plant is up to 3 m high with pink flowers, a tubular corolla with sharp lobes, leaves are oblong-lanceolate, sessile. Real tobacco is quite thermophilic, therefore it is especially productively grown in hot regions. In our country, ordinary tobacco is grown south of 55 ° north latitude (this is approximately the latitude of Ryazan, Smolensk, Ulyanovsk, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo). Ordinary tobacco is cultivated in many countries of the world and has many varieties.
• Common shag, or Rustic tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) - a plant much lower than ordinary tobacco (up to 120 cm high), yellowish flowers, corolla with a short tube and rounded blades, ovoid leaves, narrow, obtuse at the end. The leaves of this more unpretentious plant contain half as much nicotine.

In the 19th century in Russia, makhorka was cultivated on an industrial scale everywhere (even in the Urals and Siberia). Even now, some villagers traditionally grow this plant from their own seeds.

Bolivia and Peru are considered the homeland of tobacco; it was brought to Europe by the expeditions of Christopher Columbus. Traditional areas of cultural cultivation - North America, China, India, Asia Minor. On the territory of the former USSR, ordinary tobacco is cultivated in the Transcaucasus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea and Krasnodar Territory. Tobacco is a thermophilic plant, the optimal summer temperature for it is about 30 ° C. Moist, light, free-flowing sandy soils are suitable for it. Tobacco is propagated by seeds, growing seedlings from them, which are then planted in the ground.

All parts of the plant contain nicotine (nicotine leaves most of all - 0.75-2.88%). Nicotine is a potent neurotoxin and cardiotoxin that causes short-term euphoria. The use of tobacco in various forms and in various ways (smoking, chewing, sniffing) causes physical and psychological dependence. Nicotine is extremely toxic. Some of the substances in tobacco are carcinogenic. therefore smoking tobacco is dangerous to health.

Should you grow tobacco?

Suppose you are a smoker, and you have the good fortune to live somewhere in the south of Russia or in Ukraine. You have at your disposal several acres of land. Why not try on the role of Philip Morris or at least Jack Vosmerkin, an American?

First, some fun arithmetic. One cigarette contains about a gram of tobacco. And the cheaper the cigarettes, the less it is there. That is, the pack contains about 20 grams. If a person smokes a pack a day, he will need about 6-8 kilograms of tobacco per year.

Under favorable conditions, about 30 g of smoking tobacco can be obtained from one plant, and six to seven plants can be placed on 1 square meter. The planting density of large-leaved varieties is 70 × 30 cm, and the planting density of medium-sized tobacco and makhorka is 70 × 20 cm.It turns out that you need to grow 270-300 plants, occupying about 40 square meters. m. plot. Moreover, if the tobacco turned out to be too "evil", it can be diluted with the stems.

Therefore, from the point of view of economy and finances, it is definitely profitable for a smoker to grow tobacco.

Features of growing tobacco

Further in the article we will talk about the cultivation of ordinary tobacco. If you decide to grow shag (Nicotiana rustica), then you will not need many of the tips given, shag is much easier to grow and less thermophilic. For the middle lane, it is sown in May in the ground under a film or covering material, and it has time to grow and give a crop.

So, the first thing to attend to is the seeds and their planting. Seeds are now sold on the Internet on many sites, you just need to choose a store convenient for you and a variety of tobacco.

Tobacco varieties

There are many varieties of ordinary tobacco. It is worth saying that for the period from 1990 to 2010.in the All-Russian Research Institute of Tobacco, more than 20 new productive and disease-resistant varieties of tobacco with excellent characteristics have been bred.

As with vegetables, it is better to choose local varieties for your site. Therefore, we list some popular varieties that are zoned for the territories of the former USSR:

• Refectory Kubanets. The growing season from planting seedlings to the last breaking is 103-134 days. Technically suitable leaves on average 27 pcs. Nicotine content 2.6%.
• Refectory 92. The variety is resistant to numerous damaging factors, viral tobacco diseases. It has a short growing season. On average, leaf breaking occurs 98 days after planting.
• Samsun 85. The variety belongs to intensively ripening varieties, mid-season - the number of days from planting to leaf breaking will be approximately 105-110 days. The number of technically ripe leaves from one tobacco bush is about 50 pcs.
• Jubilee new 142. The growing season from planting seedlings to ripening of leaves of average breaking is 78 days, to the last breaking 82 days. The nicotine content in the leaves is 2.0-2.1%. The variety has a complex resistance to tobacco diseases.
• Holly 316. Late-ripening form, intensive type of leaf maturation. Low in nicotine. From planting to maturation of the leaves of the last breaking 120 days.

Planting seeds

We recommend growing just a few bushes for the first year. So you will test your strength and find out all the nuances of the process. Therefore, you need very few seeds to get started. Tobacco seeds are as small as dust. There are about 12 thousand tobacco seeds in one gram, and about 4 thousand pieces of makhorka. To get the annual "norm" of a smoker, you need to sow only a quarter of a gram of tobacco seeds or three-quarters of a gram of tobacco seeds. You don't have to buy seeds anymore. Two or three bushes will give them more than needed for sowing a hectare.

Tobacco seeds remain viable for a long time, so sowing with old seeds is also possible, although it must be borne in mind that their germination decreases over time.

Tobacco can be planted on the seedlings on the windowsills, with or without a pick. The required age of seedlings is 40-45 days. But this technique is good only for small (up to a quarter of a hundred) volumes. However, for the first experiment, we don't need more. When growing tobacco in large volumes, it is either immediately planted in the ground (in warm climates), or greenhouses and nurseries are used.

Tobacco seeds are sown superficially, scattering them over wet soil.

An important point. The seeding depth of tobacco seeds is no more than 0.7-0.8 cm (0.3-0.5 cm for shag). After sowing, they are only slightly pressed into the ground and watered very carefully so that the seeds do not go deep.

You can sow not dry seeds, but hatched seeds. In this case, 4 days before sowing, the seeds are soaked in warm clean water and placed on a damp cloth. This will speed up the germination of the seeds and shorten the time to forcing the seedlings by a week.

The optimum temperature for germination of tobacco seeds is + 25ºC… + 28ºC. If the temperature is lower, then this can delay the emergence of plants, or even destroy them altogether.

It is impossible to overmoisten, as well as overdry the seedlings. It is best to water a little, almost daily.

Transplanting

Seedlings are planted when it reaches a height of 15 cm, has 5-6 developed true leaves and a well-developed root system. At this point, the danger of spring frosts should be avoided outside the window, and the soil at a depth of 10 cm should warm up above 10 ° C. This period is different in different regions, but approximately it is from the end of April to the end of May.

A week before planting, it is necessary to start hardening the seedlings, reducing watering and accustoming them to open air. 2-3 days before planting, watering the seedlings is completely stopped, watering abundantly only 2-3 hours before planting.

Plants are planted one at a time in the holes, after pouring 1 liter of water into them. In general, the process is very similar to planting tomato seedlings. And of course, every transplant is a shock for the plant.Therefore, it is advisable to preserve on the roots the soil in which the seedlings grew.

Care

During the growing period, it is necessary to regularly loosen the ground, remove weeds, feed and water. You can feed the plants based on the fertilization rates of tomatoes. Watering is usually limited to two to three waterings per summer, consuming 6-8 liters of water per plant. It is better to water the tobacco insufficiently than to water it.

A rooted tobacco bush can have roots up to several meters, and many tobacco growers find watering mature bushes harmful. However, it would be nice to water the tobacco a few days before harvesting.

In flowering plants, inflorescences are broken off (vershoking) and lateral shoots are regularly removed (pinching).

The soil

Tobacco is planted on fresh soil, in the absence of such, it is placed either after steam, or after winter crops or other plants that impose other nutrient requirements on the soil. For this reason, tobacco should not be planted, for example, after beets and potatoes.

The best soils for tobacco should be considered sandy loam, characterized by the presence of potassium and nitrogen, which are necessary for the tobacco plant.

Like all immigrants from the New World, tobacco is rapidly depleting the soil. But the remedy is known - fertilizers perfectly solve this problem.

The best fertilizer for tobacco is cow dung. Bird droppings and oilcakes are also considered useful fertilizers for tobacco. On soils poor in lime, liming is used, it has a beneficial effect not only on the culture, but also on the completeness of combustion of the tobacco plant.

Harvesting begins when the color of the tobacco leaves changes from green to yellow-green or light green. Since even one bush will have leaves of varying degrees of color, the harvesting can take several weeks.

Tobacco pests and diseases

Tobacco is damaged by a number of pests, namely:

• Peach aphid, Greenhouse aphids, Tobacco aphids. Dangerous tobacco pest. A widespread species, it feeds on many cultivated and wild plants. The peach aphid colonizes all organs of the tobacco plant and sucks the juice out of them, which leads to a decrease in the yield and quality of raw materials.
• Blackleg... It is manifested by lodging and mass death of seedlings. The base of the stems becomes thinner and decays. A brown or white bloom appears on the affected surface. The pathogen remains in the soil.
• Powdery mildew. It is observed soon after planting seedlings in the ground. Separate spots with a cobweb-powdery bloom appear on the lower leaves; then the plaque becomes solid and covers the upper leaves. The mushroom hibernates on plant debris. The disease reduces photosynthesis, leads to plant oppression. Reduces the yield and quality of raw materials.
• Black root rot more often it affects seedlings, but adult plants also get sick. On the affected seedlings, the leaves wilt, turn yellow and dry out, the roots turn brown or black and often die off. In adult plants, the leaves become attached, and black and white spots form at the ends of the roots.
• Common broomstick... Distributed throughout the south and southeast of Kazakhstan. The parasite settles on the roots of tobacco and develops at the expense of the host plant, forming a powerful branching stem of purple color. As a result of mass destruction of plants by broomrape, the yield of tobacco and the quality of raw materials are reduced. Broomrape propagates by seeds that remain in the soil for many years.
• Mosaic... The leaves of diseased plants have normal green patches that alternate with light green. Later, the tissue dies off in spots. The main source of plant infection is post-harvest residues of diseased plants, both in greenhouses and in the field.
• Bacterial hazel grouse. Oily or weeping spots appear on the tips of the leaves of young seedlings or along the edges of the leaves. In wet weather, they rot, and the whole plant becomes infected from them. Round chlorotic spots appear on the leaves of grown plants, which merge, forming patches of dead tissue.The causative agent of the disease is stored in tobacco leaves, in tobacco dust, in inventory.

Tobacco drying and fermentation

Well, the most important part of getting smoking tobacco is drying and fermentation. Let's make a reservation right away: if you do not smoke, have no previous experience with tobacco, it will be quite difficult for you to determine the degree of readiness. You can either not dry it out, or rot. However, let me remind you that our grandfathers grew and dried makhorka without a higher education.

Drying

After collecting, the tobacco leaves are hung to dry in a ventilated room, while it is advisable to place containers with water there to increase the humidity. The leaves dry out in about a month.

Then the dried leaves must be moistened with clean water from a spray bottle and folded into piles, covered with polyethylene, and kept for up to a day for uniform moistening. The leaves should be soft, but not soggy. Then the leaves, either whole or cut, are concealed in sealed glass containers (jars) for fermentation.

Fermentation

Fermentation is a biochemical process that takes place at a constant temperature of 50 ° C for several weeks. Tobacco is fermented to reduce the strength, change the taste for the better, and reduce nicotine and tar. This can be done, for example, in electric ovens at a temperature of + 50ºC… + 60 ºC. Sometimes it is more convenient to dry cut leaves rather than whole leaves.

The resulting tobacco can be smoked in pipes, wrapped in cigarettes, fortunately, wrapping machines and tissue paper are now sold in many places. Finally, you can try making a cigar - it's easy and fun.

Of course, our material does not claim to be a detailed textbook, and many subtleties remained unaffected. And if you are serious about growing tobacco, you will need to study this issue more. But in order to get the first harvest, you already know enough.

We'd love to read your tips and secrets for growing, drying and fermenting tobacco.

And in conclusion, we remind you once again: smoking is addictive and harmful to your health. If you don't smoke, don't start. If you smoke, maybe it's time to quit? Nerd against smoking!

 

Before you start growing smoking tobacco in your country house, answer yourself this question: why do you need it? In order to get a shag or an insecticide to repel garden pests? Both the first and second goals of growing tobacco are hardly advisable.

It is not safe to grow homemade rolls for rolls. Having grown tobacco, dried its leaves, can you independently determine the nicotine content in them? Of course not. And it, depending on the variety, cultivation agricultural technology, raw material processing technology, can range from tenths to four percent or more.

If the nicotine content is low, smoking homemade cigarettes will not bring satisfaction to heavy smokers, and a high percentage of nicotine will be detrimental to health. The uncontrolled use of tobacco dust, tobacco infusions for pest control in the garden is also unsafe for people.

It is worth remembering that tobacco belongs to nightshade crops and therefore it is not easy for it to find beds on which potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, physalis, petunia have not been grown for several years.

Belonging to this family is fraught with viral diseases that can spread from tobacco to your favorite garden crops and vice versa.

But having warned about the negative consequences of growing tobacco, it's time to talk about the agricultural technology of this crop.

Growing smoking tobacco through seedlings

There are over fifty types of tobacco, but only two are considered cultural. Plants of one are raw materials for obtaining shag, plants of the other - tobacco. Makhorka can be grown throughout Russia, but tobacco only south of 55º parallel.

From such small seeds, such a huge bush grows.

An adult plant grows up to one and a half meters. The stem is straight. The leaves are whole, oval. Flowers are collected in a paniculate inflorescence at the top of the stem. The fruit is a polyspermous capsule. The seeds are very small: there are 10-15 thousand of them in one gram. The root system is branched, deeply penetrating into the soil.

Most varieties belong to long-day plants: they move to the flowering and fruiting phase at 15-16 hours of daylight.

At what temperature to grow. Tobacco is thermophilic. Even in the southern regions of the country, it is grown through seedlings. Sowing begins in early March in a mixture of humus, garden soil and sand (2: 1: 1). In the pre-emergence period, the temperature is maintained at 27-28 degrees. For emerging seedlings, it is lowered to 18-20 degrees. Provide good lighting.

Seedling care. Water the seedlings without waiting for the soil to dry. But a week before transplanting into open ground, watering is reduced, and two days before it is stopped. By the time of planting in open ground, the seedlings should have 5-6 true leaves, be 12-15 cm high.

Landing in open ground

In open ground, hardened seedlings are planted after the threat of frost has passed. The site is prepared in advance, choosing a place protected from the wind. Tobacco grows well after green manure (cereals, legumes).

It is not recommended to grow it after potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, physalis, return it to its original place earlier than after 2-3 years. Tobacco responds positively to humus and compost introduced before planting (2-3 kg per sq. M).

Seedlings ready for planting.

Seedlings are planted in pre-watered soil, deepening the stem by 3-4 cm. It is possible and deeper, but not to fill up the growth point. 4-5 large-leaved plants or 6-7 medium-leaved varieties are placed on a square meter.

In the initial period of growth, the soil on the site is moistened, increasing the rate of water consumption as the plants grow. On light soils, watered more often than on heavy soils. By the time of harvesting, the intensity of watering is reduced. After each watering, the aisles are loosened.

Tobacco is thermophilic, but temperatures over 35 degrees are unfavorable for it: young plants may die, and adults retard their development.

Top dressing of tobacco

In the first half of the growing season, tobacco needs enhanced nitrogen nutrition. But overfeeding with nitrogen reduces the quality of raw materials: it turns out to be rough, burning, and smells unpleasant. Nitrogen fertilizers are applied before planting seedlings - 2-3 tbsp. spoons per sq. m.

Phosphorus and potassium are needed throughout the growing season. Phosphorus promotes earlier flowering, maturation of leaves. Excess phosphorus leads to premature aging of the leaves. Tobacco also needs good potassium nutrition, but again without excess.

Tobacco plantation.

Excess potassium reduces the quality of the tobacco: its smell becomes unpleasant. Usually potassium sulfate, superphosphate is brought under the autumn digging - up to 0.5 cups per sq. m.

When planting, you can add complex fertilizers dissolved in water (2 tablespoons per sq. M) containing equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium.

For top dressing, you can use organic infusions. They are brought into the grooves made by the hoe in the middle of the row spacings.

To get good raw materials, plants during the growing season are pinned (side shoots are removed) and pounded (inflorescences are cut off).

When tobacco is harvested - samosad

Harvesting begins when the leaves acquire a slight yellowish tint. The lower leaves are broken out first - 3-4 from each plant. The second collection is increased to 3-5, the third - to 5-7 leaves. Then the number of harvested leaves begins to be reduced.

Drying of tobacco leaves.

The leaves are removed in the morning after the dew dries and in the evening. Before harvesting, the lowest (seedling) leaves are removed. Broken leaves are laid blade to blade, petiole to petiole.Then, using a large needle, the leaves are strung on the twine so that they do not stick to each other.

The first phase of leaf drying is carried out at a temperature of 25-35 degrees and an air humidity of 75-90 percent. After the leaves turn from green to yellow, they are dried in the sun.

Infusion for pest control

Pour 0.5 kg of dry tobacco leaves with 10 liters of hot water, insist for two days. Before spraying, add 40 g of laundry soap dissolved in water, dilute it by half with water and treat the plants against aphids, leaf rollers, spider mites, onion and cabbage moths, slugs.

 

In our country, up to 75% of the male half of the population and about 21% of women smoke. A depressing statistician, you can’t say anything ... And this is against the background of active promotion of a healthy lifestyle and a gradual rise in the price of cigarettes. It is the latter fact that pushes many smokers to master the independent cultivation of smoking tobacco. But does it make any practical sense? It all depends on how much garden space and strength you are willing to spend on this activity, as well as on your desire to understand all the nuances of tobacco agricultural technology.

Pros and cons of growing tobacco in the garden for smoking

The harm of tobacco smoking is undeniable, and addiction to this potion comes very quickly. Scientists have found that smoking by force of habit is second only to addiction to such a hardest drug as heroin! But you can and should give up cigarettes: this way you will increase your life expectancy by 15–20 years. Let me tell you a little secret - I also suffered from this addiction until I was 18 years old. Among friends, everyone dabbled in cigarettes, but there were times when there were no other entertainments (and if there were, then we could not afford them).

I quit easily, overnight, due to the fact that the addiction was more psychological than physiological.

Well, we're off topic a bit. If you are still a heavy smoker and you “go away” at least a pack of cigarettes a day, then you should certainly consider from all sides the possibility of cultivating tobacco on the site.

So to advantages the presence of a tobacco bed on the site can be attributed to:

Firstly, if you follow all the intricacies of the technology of growing and harvesting tobacco leaves, you will get excellent homemade tobacco. They can be stuffed into smoking pipes, as well as wrapped in cigarettes (cigarette paper can now be bought in many online stores);

Secondly, makhorka is successfully used in the fight against an uncountable army of garden and vegetable pests. You can read how to use tobacco dust and tobacco to repel harmful insects here.

Thirdly, the presence of nicotine in tobacco makes it a medicinal plant. Let me remind you that the harm is caused not by the tobacco leaves themselves, but by the smoke generated from their combustion. Accurate dosage and competent use - and, you see, nicotine turns from a poison into a remedy for headaches, burns, constipation, women's ailments, asthma and a number of skin diseases.

But in general, growing smoking tobacco on the site is not a good idea, and that's why:

• If you are a non-tobacco expert, it will be extremely difficult to normalize the nicotine content of rolls. If this substance is not enough, then you will not get any buzz from smoking. If, on the contrary, the tobacco turns out to be too strong, then sooner or later you will simply part with the remnants of health (do you need it?).
• excessive enthusiasm for tobacco dust in the war against garden pests may also be far from harmless to humans and plants.
• if you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, then in order to fully provide smoking for the whole year, the area of ​​your tobacco plantation should be about 40 square meters, which corresponds to about 300 (!) plants of this crop. I think you will agree that for the owner of a plot of six acres, this is too unreasonable and wasteful.

Types of tobacco

Tobacco belongs to the nightshade family and is of two types - ordinary tobacco and ordinary tobacco (rustic tobacco). Their main difference lies in the fact that ordinary tobacco is more thermophilic and whimsical, but at the same time it is more yielding and gives better quality raw materials (plants of this type can reach up to three meters in height, but tobacco usually does not hold up to 1.2 meters) ...

How to grow tobacco correctly, step by step instructions

Next, I will tell you the main points of agricultural technology for ordinary or real tobacco. Mahorka is much easier to grow - it is enough to sow seeds in open ground in the second half of May, and in a few months it will be possible to harvest the fragrant leaves.

1. Sowing seeds for seedlings is best done in February. Tobacco seeds are simply super small - one gram contains about 12 thousand pieces. They are sown in bowls in a loose and moist substrate (compost, garden soil, sand 2: 1: 1) to a depth of no more than 7 mm.

   Tobacco seeds are very tiny

2. Until the emergence of shoots, containers are kept in bags at a temperature of + 27 ... 28 degrees. Further, the tobacco seedlings are grown on a light windowsill (in March, illumination is simply necessary!) At a temperature of + 18 ... 20 degrees.

   If the tobacco seedlings stretch out, then you need to carefully add soil to their stalks. Otherwise, they may die.

3. Watering needs regular, but moderate, using a syringe or spray bottle. When the plants throw out the first pair of real leaves, they must either be broken through, or they must be planted in separate cups with a depth to the cotyledons (if the seedlings are stretched out). At first, I recommend leaving only 5-6 bushes in order to understand how profitable and interesting it is for you to keep this culture on the site. As a result, 2-3 of the strongest plants will move to a permanent place (the rest can be distributed).

   Small but smart!

4. Caring for tobacco in the "nursery" period is elementary: light, warmth and water are in abundance, but not in abundance. Do not forget about the periodic loosening of the soil in pots.
5. Seedlings of tobacco are transferred to a permanent place at the age of 40 to 45 days in the second half - end of May. By this time, the plants have time to acquire 5-6 true leaves and reach a height of about 15 centimeters. To make the plants less sick from transplanting, they are hardened for 5-7 days and not watered for two to three days before this stressful procedure.

   In the garden, tobacco plants develop very quickly and build up vegetative mass.

6. Tobacco shows the maximum yield on sandy loam, manured soil, while it is preferable to grow it after winter crops or after steam. But beets, potatoes, and all nightshade plants are poor precursors for tobacco.
7. The optimal distance between the bushes when planting is 40-50 centimeters. One liter of water should be poured into the planting holes with the addition of one teaspoon of complex fertilizer.

   Blooming tobacco is very decorative

8. This culture does not tolerate even a short-term drought, so at first it needs weekly watering (usually only two or three times per season is enough). However, in mature plants, the root system pierces the soil to a depth of two meters and successfully supplies them with moisture, even in dry periods. In this regard, some experts - tobacco growers even believe that too frequent watering reduces the yield of tobacco.
9. Top dressing is combined with irrigation, adding one or two complete mineral fertilizers for 8-10 liters to the irrigation water. If you are not a fan of "mineral water", then you can feed the bushes with nettle infusion and 2-3 times over the summer to close up ash in the aisles.
10. To improve the quality and quantity of leaves, tobaccos are applied to tobacco plants, that is, the flowers and stepsons formed in the axils are regularly removed from the bushes.
11. The first wave of tobacco harvest is harvested within a month and a half after planting seedlings in open ground. The readiness of the leaves is evidenced by a slight yellowing of the leaves, their slightly glossy appearance and smoothing of the tubercles.

On this, the path to obtaining homemade tobacco is far from over, because the most interesting thing lies ahead - drying and fermentation of the collected raw materials. All the nuances of these two procedures are well described in two videos.

Well, if you decide to thoroughly study all the secrets of growing tobacco in the garden for smoking, then I advise you not to regret an hour and a half watching a movie. By the way, on this channel you will find a detailed analysis of all the points related to the cultivation of tobacco on the site.