The 3 main varieties of dark tobacco I grew this year were
Little Yellow
Black Mammoth
And Madole...
I also am growing in this patch about half of assorted burley varieties. The main thrust of this post is to help people see the differences between growing the dark tobacco and burley.
Early season they all grew the same. Topped the burley August 5 in our cool, high altitude mountain valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The burley was topped at normal maturity with the dark tobacco varieties topping at first initiation of bud the 15 of August.
By the 5th of September the burley varieties were well matured and were being primed but the dark tobacco was just dark green and growing heavy, thick leaves with no sign of leaf ripening. Not concerned because several University and other publications said dark tobacco would harvest 7 weeks or longer from topping. By the 3rd week of September the mudlugs were yellowing and lower leaves showing signs of maturity. Began first priming of the slightly yellow mottled leaves with some concern they werent ripe enough. To my great relief the primed leaf begain yellowing and soon turned a bright yellow before showing dark brown at tips and margins before moving the strings to a drying and curing room.
The dark tobacco primed normally after that and color cured nicely. The leaf is much heavier, thicker, stickier and has a lot of size and weight. The stickiness is very pronounced and a sheen was on both upper and lower leaf surfaces. The second priming was also normal and now, the first week of October all remaining leaf is now ripe and ready for priming. The burley has all been cured, dried and hanging for a couple weeks.
My point is that dark tobacco is much later to harvest and if you are growing it and are treating it like a burley, you will be priming incurable green leaf.
My.observation among the 3 dark varieties are the Madole, hands down was the biggest and strongest producer. Madole was also the variety most susceptible to house burn, rot and mold. If growing keep humidity at normal 65% levels with air movement and you will be fine. I only lost 3 or 4 leaves. The next best and nicest to grow was Little Yellow. It grew well but not as large as the Black Mammoth or Madole. It has very respectable leaf size and it had the heaviest leaf of all 3 varieties. Black Mammoth was the 3rd place finisher but had good yields, easy to grow and a nice plant. All 3 varieties were very sticky and seem nicotine laden. They all cured well but I would caution that the need 3 weeks or a bit longer than burley varieties to cure and that the ripening signs are very subtle. After color curing I hung the yellow leaf, still in case in a room that I keep as a smoke room. It makes an awesome sheen of color, tasty leaf and covers the stickiness.
Final harvest will be in a few more days, just before the first hard freeze. It has been a mild fall here.
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