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The Story of Jessica's Fantastic 2014 =)

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JessicaNicot

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I definitely need my dictionary for the big words. I came in late ,Photoperiod relates to what?

photoperiod sensitivity is the phenomenon where some plants will only flower after given certain light conditions. it was actually discovered in tobacco even though most tobacco plants are insensitive (the flower in x amount of days regardless of light-dark cycles). the poinsettias you see at Christmas are photoperiod sensitive. Christmas cactus is also a good example, as are flowering trees like cherry.

here is the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoperiodism

here is another thread showing some pics of Maryland Mammoth grown under different conditions: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/3972-Tobacco-Photoperiod-Sensitivity?highlight=photoperiod
 

BarG

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Wow! thank you for that. That should explain it all except for a simple curiosity, and I'm just dense.
N. tobaccum versus a cherry tree. Your talking strictly seed production for the tobacco plant versus blossums which yield fruit which yeilds seeds for the tree.

So from an understanding here there are strains bred for different light conditions
How could you possibly know which is which . It seems it would take way to many years to figure and discover.
 

JessicaNicot

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Grow 2014 started off so well and was on track to be a better than average season...

But now it wont stop raining! Eleven days into September and the station has already received 8.68" of rain and they are calling for (multiple inches) more this weekend. This may be the most protracted seed harvesting effort I can remember. The weeds are waist high and yesterday my coworker saw a snake!
 

JessicaNicot

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In the 8 or so years ive been out in the tobacco fields worrying about snakes, Clayton is the only place we've actually seen one. we saw another big black snake last year after a similarly heavy downpour. our field this year is right next to where it was last year so im wondering if its the same snake.

last year in one of the worst weeded parts of the field (grass and other weeds waist high, morning glory vines everywhere) we were harvesting some seed and I kept hearing things move around in the weeds. turns out they were large toads, but every time my first thought was "SNAKE!" I don't think id be so nervous if I was wearing snake boots.

im really girly in the respect that I startle easy when the moths or large grasshoppers pop out unexpectedly from the plants. I also momentarily freak out when I unexpectedly grab a worm, even tho I know they wont hurt me. =/
 

leverhead

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The only one I worry about is a copperhead, everything else gets a second chance. Copperhead's are just plain mean and there's no shortage of them.
 

deluxestogie

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im really girly in the respect that I startle easy when the moths or large grasshoppers pop out unexpectedly from the plants.
I've leaped backward and landed on my butt, when a cicada suddenly flies out of a plant at face level. I guess that's girly, but I didn't cry.

Bob
 
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JessicaNicot

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I've leaped backward and landed on my butt, when a cicada suddenly flies out of a plant at face level. I guess that's girly, but I didn't cry.

Bob

lol. that's like two years ago when I was in a Hungarian type plant (very dense leaf spacing) trying to get a leaf to evaluate and one of those big ass moths flew out at me. I jumped backward, tripped in the furrow and flattened two plants in the plot behind me. not one of my finer moments...
 
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deluxestogie

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Last year, when my brother and his wife were looking over my tobacco patch, the three of us closed-in on a truly huge cicada that was making a racket (in excess of OSHA standards) on one of my tall blackberry canes. We were commenting on just how loud a single bug could be when an equally huge, black wasp swooped in, grabbed the now-silent cicada, and flew away with it. When your time comes....

None of us fell down, but three jaws dropped. I had no idea that wasps came that large, nor that they carried off whole cicadas for dinner. You never know what's lurking in the shadows.

Bob
 

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That was probably a ground wasp, I saw one the other day fly into a hole in the ground with a cicada or locust, is what we call them. I have been inches away from copperheads twice this year.
 

JessicaNicot

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oh wow. those wasps are impressive. I have holes all in the front lawn where the cicadas crawled out of the ground but I've never seen a wasp like that. oddly enough, yesterday when I was in the field collecting seed heads I broke off a sucker and a wasp unexpectedly flew out at me (face level). that's never happened before, but I guess maybe she was looking for that baby hornworm I found on the neighboring plant. I also saw a nasty momma spider on an egg nest on one of our pollination bags (photos coming in a later post). I tried to use a broken sucker to get them off and I'm pretty sure she tried to bite it!


so the good news of the day is that yesterday I finally finished harvesting all of my seed heads in the field and thus my field season is officially over =)
 

JessicaNicot

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so the field looks like a disaster, not that it matters anymore:
20140915_114234.jpg


Here are some of the fun critters I found while I was harvesting seed:

20140917_134741.jpg
That nest is about the size of half a gumball. I don't know what kind of spider this is but I see at least one each year in the field, though this is by far the largest and this first ever I've seen with a nest.


20140917_142816.jpg
Hornworms are kinda cute when they are small, and no longer of any consequence.


20140910_093538.jpg
This hawkmoth was just chilling on a bag that wasn't in one of my plots so I let him be.
 
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