Massive quantity of leaves, low humidity, help

[vanmarco]

Hello there!

Sorry about not introducing myself right now, I just need a quick advice.
Im from romania, south, here humidity is very low, all throughout summer it has been in low 20%s.
I did plant my tobacco like a month later, assuming, well, but it's not going to be cold in sept or october so it has time to grow.
What i didnt account for is, if i hang leaves with this humidity, even in the shade, they dry to a crisp, green.
So following advice from various posts here and youtube, i found out to avoid this phenomenon, i just made stack of 30 to 50 leaves, placed them on tables and covered with towels
so far, results are good.
Issue is, i have about 550 leaves, that i need to be turning every day. ...and i have like 75 plants, to which by eye i harvested less than a third. It's september 18th. as much as it wont be cold in the next week,
it's eventually going to be cold. and given it takes around 10 days for the stacks to yellow and then be able to be hung and dried, im in a bit of a pinch.

Now, i do have another 4x4 greenhouse that i could make to hold covered stacks of leaves but. turning 1000s of leaves every day may be quite time consuming. to turn the 550 i have, it takes one hour.
My question is. As i notice moisture only after they started yellowing, and no moisture on the freshly harvested/green ones, could it be that once i harvest them and stack them, until they yellow i can just turn them
once every 2 or 3 days? otherwise this is going to become a full time job for weeks to come.

i have mostly turkish, burley and virginia and some maryland.

Thank you

 

[GreenDragon]

I would let the majority of the leaves mature, then stalk harvest the crop. Hang the stalks in the greenhouse to cure. The stems hold a lot of moisture and will help slow the drying process. This is what I did when I lived in a very dry area.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum. Read the New Growers' FAQ, and scan through the topics in our Index of Key Forum Threads. Both are linked in the menu bar.

In addition to @GreenDragon's suggestion, you might also consider the fact that most Turkish varieties, as well as Virginia flue-cure varieties can be sun-cured. Sun-curing individual leaves gives the loveliest results, but sun-curing stalk-cut is less work, and less prone to drying green. Burley and Maryland should be air-cured, rather than sun-cured, and they usually do quite well when stalk-cut and stalk-cured in the shade.

Bob

 

[Sergey Ukraine]

If you have a greenhouse, why are you stacking the leaves in piles? Usually, the humidity in a greenhouse is higher than outside. You may need to close the ventilation in it and increase the humidity, then you can hang the leaves to dry and not worry that they will remain green.

 

[vanmarco]

its bone dry, even in the greenhouse. you sure hanging the whole plant would work? I had some suckers attached and they still dried green.

 

[GreenDragon]

its bone dry, even in the greenhouse. you sure hanging the whole plant would work? I had some suckers attached and they still dried green.

One or two plants, no. 100 plants in a small greenhouse - yes! Also, you can water the ground to increase the humidity inside the greenhouse. Once you fill it up you may need to place a fan inside to circulate the air.

 

[vanmarco]

yes maybe its quite dry as theres nothing in this smaller one. so I could pick and stack the better leaves, the rest, i cut the plants and hang them there? also, as i did pick some leaves, how much stem i leave, like, 30-40cm from where the leaves begin, or longer? thanks!

 

[vanmarco]

I also have a sort of a basement, that there moisture is higher, but also temperature is lower. would it be ok to hang lines of green leaves? there leaves never go crispy, but isnt temperature too low?

 

[StoneCarver]

I don't have a lot of experience but I'd say humidity is more important than temperature. I color cured my stalk cut plants in my basement which was about 70-75F and the humidity averaged about 85%. The humidity was a little too high. So as soon as the leaves mostly color cured I had to bring them upstairs out of the basement because the stems started to grow mold.

Up in the Appalachian mountains, people would color cure their stalk cut plants in barns and it could get down around 40F at night. The barns were not heated.

 

[johnny108]

Temperature needs to be above 12C/53F for the chlorophyll to break down in the curing leaf.
Below that, metabolic processes stop.