Bob's note about aphids:
Aphids arrive on a plant by means of a flying aphid landing on the plant, and laying eggs. That's how they get there on growing tobacco. The babies, the sucking aphids, attach to a single spot until they mature. And they poop out sticky, "honeydew". If you wash them away with a spray of water—forceful enough to dislodge them, but not so forceful that it bruises the leaf lamina—those particular aphids are gone for good. They can't climb back up. (Some folks mist them with a bit of Dawn dish detergent dissolved in a spray bottle of water. This causes them to dehydrate and die. But then I worry about sufficient, subsequent rain to rinse away the detergent from the leaf surface.)
When I sun-cure tobacco, the leaves (or stalk-cut plants) are still exposed to the open air, and can be re-colonized by aphids during the two or three weeks of sun-curing. For air-cured varieties in a open air shed, the same applies. If the air-curing space is screened-in, then the only later aphids that can appear are those for which eggs were previously laid by a flying aphid, but not yet hatched.
Dried, dead aphids on fully cured tobacco are initially very difficult to brush off, since the area tends to be sticky. If you then kiln the leaf, or allow it to age on its own, the stickiness diminishes somewhat, making it easier to brush away the dead aphids. Regardless of all this fuss, I still end up picking away individual, dead aphids prior to rolling a cigar, or shredding for pipe blending.
Bob
Bob's note about aphids:
Aphids arrive on a plant by means of a flying aphid landing on the plant, and laying eggs. That's how they get there on growing tobacco. The babies, the sucking aphids, attach to a single spot until they mature. And they poop out sticky, "honeydew". If you wash them away with a spray of water—forceful enough to dislodge them, but not so forceful that it bruises the leaf lamina—those particular aphids are gone for good. They can't climb back up. (Some folks mist them with a bit of Dawn dish detergent dissolved in a spray bottle of water. This causes them to dehydrate and die. But then I worry about sufficient, subsequent rain to rinse away the detergent from the leaf surface.)
When I sun-cure tobacco, the leaves (or stalk-cut plants) are still exposed to the open air, and can be re-colonized by aphids during the two or three weeks of sun-curing. For air-cured varieties in a open air shed, the same applies. If the air-curing space is screened-in, then the only later aphids that can appear are those for which eggs were previously laid by a flying aphid, but not yet hatched.
Dried, dead aphids on fully cured tobacco are initially very difficult to brush off, since the area tends to be sticky. If you then kiln the leaf, or allow it to age on its own, the stickiness diminishes somewhat, making it easier to brush away the dead aphids. Regardless of all this fuss, I still end up picking away individual, dead aphids prior to rolling a cigar, or shredding for pipe blending.
Bob
