Tutu
Well-Known Member
Hi everyone at Fair Trade Tobacco,
I am new to the forum. I have been browsing around here a bit for the last few weeks. Fair Trade Tobacco is a huge network and knowledge base. I am very enthusiastic, especially about the grow logs. I do not have a lot of growing experience myself yet, but I do intend to add to the diversity of this forum in my own particular way. One of which is to introduce the Dutch variety which was grown around the Eastern region of the Utrecht province in the Netherlands before and during WWII. However, that is to be discussed in a different thread. In a nutshell, this grow log is dedicated to growing plants of three individual collections of seeds made in the mountains of Timor-Leste.
Timor is an island in the far south east of the Indonesian archipelago. Having made a trip to the West part of the island with a friend in April 2013, I was eager to travel to the East with my partner this month, July 2016. The east was colonised by Portugal rather than the Dutch, leaving behind a country that is significantly different in sociological terms. Timor-Leste is a sovereign nation as of 2002.
This thread will neither be a history lesson nor a travel blog. However, to give an accurate description of what I am about to grow, I will write a detailed descriptions of the collections made on each different occasions. Frankly, I am not completely sure what we have collected. Therefore a background of what we intended to do and how we went about.
Globalization of tobacco has made it hard to find isolated varieties in remote places, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a shot. Besides travelling to a remote and beautiful country, collecting tobacco seeds was always on our shortlist. Prior to leaving I was able to find a single entry at the AVH (Australian Virtual Herbarium) for a Timor-Leste collection of tobacco. Besides that it is hard to find online details about tobacco cultivation in the country, if any. I did expect to find tobacco grown in one form or another since a large proportion of the Timorese smoke, as well as grow their own herbs and spices. I had no reason not to expect that the variety would be unique. On Java there are numerous tobacco varieties such as Besuki, Jatim, Kasturi and Lumajang, whereas on islands in close proximity such as Madura, Bali and Lombok the varieties are again different ones. Timor is much further away and thus more isolated, both physically and historically.
Arriving at Dili, the capital, we hired a 4x4 to be able to take on any terrain we would face. Most tourists on Timor-Leste drive along the North coast toward the eastern tip and go to Jaco island. We had different plans...
Picture East Timor as the shape of a crocodile's tail with roads along the coasts and a few connecting roads from North to South through the mountains. We drove towards the east and concluded that the northern coastline would be much too dry for tobacco to grow easily. We stayed one night at Baucau before driving into the mountains, aiming to drive towards Viqueque, a stronghold area during Indonesian occupation in the last quarter of the 20th century.
After passing the town of Venilale we started to see some tobacco plants growing, predominantly against the structure of their wooden houses. Semi-wild, as only very few leafs seemed to be picked from the plants. Most plants never seemed to have been transplanted and some grew between the rocks, which I doubt would be a place to deliberately plant tobacco. I saw a few fine plants around but only on one occasion did I spot seedbuds. These people sold bananas and oranges so we bought some, showed interest in the tobacco and gave them an extra dollar to include some ripe seedbuds. The Timorese speak Tetun, Portuguese, and Bahasa Indonesia. We communicate with them in the latter of those three. Upon obtaining the seeds we were told that the locals in the district roll this tobacco in the dried skin of corn cobs. Temperature around this area was somewhat below 20°C. Later that evening we stopped and slept around the town of Loihunu and found ourselves unfortunate to have collected buds which had spilled most of their seeds. Then again, better to have some than none.
We kept on going and slept the following night in a small town in the Manufahe district which is not far from the South coast. As many houses had small spice and herb gardens I asked a certain Mr Fernandez if any tobacco was grown in Fatuberliu. He told me there was none in the town itself, but that there was definitely tobacco to be found in the mountains of East Timor, confirming what we had found earlier.
Some time later we found ourselves driving in the Ainaro district in-between the town of Same and Maubisse. Tobacco seemed more rare around here in comparison to Viqueque. When seeing some tall tobacco plants grow in the shadow of a hut upon a hill I started climbing it right away. There was only a boy who was not old enough to be able to speak Indonesian. He had trouble understanding what I wanted, but he did not intervene when I started to break of some stems with buds. After bringing those back to our car I went back and gave the boy five dollars. The temperature around this zone dropped even further than in Viqueque and was about 17°C that day. The amount of seeds retrieved from these buds was much higher than those of the previous occasion.
Later that week we found ourselves back at Dili, enjoying the final days of our vacation. We concluded that there was one connecting road away from Dili into the mountains that we had yet to drive. On the road to Railaco, just before exiting the district of Liquiçá there are a number of people who cultivate tobacco. Some of these people do so in a very orderly fashion. The altitude here is a bit less in comparison to Viqueque and Ainaro and thus the temperature is higher. The people were very eager to sell but it was hard to find a house that had plants passed the blossom stage. We both saw one very tall plant which had been primed and from which we were able to collect a large amount of seeds.
I am only going to refer to the different collections of seeds with the names Viqueque, Ainaro and Liquiçá as to distinguish them from one another. I am in no way attaching names to these plants as if they were varieties. As I mentioned previously, I am not sure what these plants are. I saw various characteristics among plants and I am not quite sure whether they are due to growing conditions or to genotype. Also, I am not sure how this tobacco got to Timor-Leste. Whas it shipped by the Portuguese, or was it brought during a more recent epoch of Indonesian occupation? As the tobacco on Timor is found in the mountainous areas it seems unlikely that they were dispersed by the Indonesian, as these were the areas to which most of the Timorese fled and held resistance. Especially in the case of the Viqueque district. I am not too sure if that reasoning would hold for Liquiçá. Then again, I am not quite sure...
My aim is to grow the tobacco we collected on Timor-Leste during the following weeks and to see what it looks like. I am growing the seeds in the East of Java, where the rainy season is about to come to an end. I am growing them alongside some Besuki and Amerongen. Any suggestion is welcome. I hope to receive some help as to identify the type of tobacco. Once again, I am a young grower, not too experienced.
I am new to the forum. I have been browsing around here a bit for the last few weeks. Fair Trade Tobacco is a huge network and knowledge base. I am very enthusiastic, especially about the grow logs. I do not have a lot of growing experience myself yet, but I do intend to add to the diversity of this forum in my own particular way. One of which is to introduce the Dutch variety which was grown around the Eastern region of the Utrecht province in the Netherlands before and during WWII. However, that is to be discussed in a different thread. In a nutshell, this grow log is dedicated to growing plants of three individual collections of seeds made in the mountains of Timor-Leste.
Timor is an island in the far south east of the Indonesian archipelago. Having made a trip to the West part of the island with a friend in April 2013, I was eager to travel to the East with my partner this month, July 2016. The east was colonised by Portugal rather than the Dutch, leaving behind a country that is significantly different in sociological terms. Timor-Leste is a sovereign nation as of 2002.
This thread will neither be a history lesson nor a travel blog. However, to give an accurate description of what I am about to grow, I will write a detailed descriptions of the collections made on each different occasions. Frankly, I am not completely sure what we have collected. Therefore a background of what we intended to do and how we went about.
Globalization of tobacco has made it hard to find isolated varieties in remote places, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a shot. Besides travelling to a remote and beautiful country, collecting tobacco seeds was always on our shortlist. Prior to leaving I was able to find a single entry at the AVH (Australian Virtual Herbarium) for a Timor-Leste collection of tobacco. Besides that it is hard to find online details about tobacco cultivation in the country, if any. I did expect to find tobacco grown in one form or another since a large proportion of the Timorese smoke, as well as grow their own herbs and spices. I had no reason not to expect that the variety would be unique. On Java there are numerous tobacco varieties such as Besuki, Jatim, Kasturi and Lumajang, whereas on islands in close proximity such as Madura, Bali and Lombok the varieties are again different ones. Timor is much further away and thus more isolated, both physically and historically.
Arriving at Dili, the capital, we hired a 4x4 to be able to take on any terrain we would face. Most tourists on Timor-Leste drive along the North coast toward the eastern tip and go to Jaco island. We had different plans...
Picture East Timor as the shape of a crocodile's tail with roads along the coasts and a few connecting roads from North to South through the mountains. We drove towards the east and concluded that the northern coastline would be much too dry for tobacco to grow easily. We stayed one night at Baucau before driving into the mountains, aiming to drive towards Viqueque, a stronghold area during Indonesian occupation in the last quarter of the 20th century.
After passing the town of Venilale we started to see some tobacco plants growing, predominantly against the structure of their wooden houses. Semi-wild, as only very few leafs seemed to be picked from the plants. Most plants never seemed to have been transplanted and some grew between the rocks, which I doubt would be a place to deliberately plant tobacco. I saw a few fine plants around but only on one occasion did I spot seedbuds. These people sold bananas and oranges so we bought some, showed interest in the tobacco and gave them an extra dollar to include some ripe seedbuds. The Timorese speak Tetun, Portuguese, and Bahasa Indonesia. We communicate with them in the latter of those three. Upon obtaining the seeds we were told that the locals in the district roll this tobacco in the dried skin of corn cobs. Temperature around this area was somewhat below 20°C. Later that evening we stopped and slept around the town of Loihunu and found ourselves unfortunate to have collected buds which had spilled most of their seeds. Then again, better to have some than none.
We kept on going and slept the following night in a small town in the Manufahe district which is not far from the South coast. As many houses had small spice and herb gardens I asked a certain Mr Fernandez if any tobacco was grown in Fatuberliu. He told me there was none in the town itself, but that there was definitely tobacco to be found in the mountains of East Timor, confirming what we had found earlier.
Some time later we found ourselves driving in the Ainaro district in-between the town of Same and Maubisse. Tobacco seemed more rare around here in comparison to Viqueque. When seeing some tall tobacco plants grow in the shadow of a hut upon a hill I started climbing it right away. There was only a boy who was not old enough to be able to speak Indonesian. He had trouble understanding what I wanted, but he did not intervene when I started to break of some stems with buds. After bringing those back to our car I went back and gave the boy five dollars. The temperature around this zone dropped even further than in Viqueque and was about 17°C that day. The amount of seeds retrieved from these buds was much higher than those of the previous occasion.
Later that week we found ourselves back at Dili, enjoying the final days of our vacation. We concluded that there was one connecting road away from Dili into the mountains that we had yet to drive. On the road to Railaco, just before exiting the district of Liquiçá there are a number of people who cultivate tobacco. Some of these people do so in a very orderly fashion. The altitude here is a bit less in comparison to Viqueque and Ainaro and thus the temperature is higher. The people were very eager to sell but it was hard to find a house that had plants passed the blossom stage. We both saw one very tall plant which had been primed and from which we were able to collect a large amount of seeds.
I am only going to refer to the different collections of seeds with the names Viqueque, Ainaro and Liquiçá as to distinguish them from one another. I am in no way attaching names to these plants as if they were varieties. As I mentioned previously, I am not sure what these plants are. I saw various characteristics among plants and I am not quite sure whether they are due to growing conditions or to genotype. Also, I am not sure how this tobacco got to Timor-Leste. Whas it shipped by the Portuguese, or was it brought during a more recent epoch of Indonesian occupation? As the tobacco on Timor is found in the mountainous areas it seems unlikely that they were dispersed by the Indonesian, as these were the areas to which most of the Timorese fled and held resistance. Especially in the case of the Viqueque district. I am not too sure if that reasoning would hold for Liquiçá. Then again, I am not quite sure...
My aim is to grow the tobacco we collected on Timor-Leste during the following weeks and to see what it looks like. I am growing the seeds in the East of Java, where the rainy season is about to come to an end. I am growing them alongside some Besuki and Amerongen. Any suggestion is welcome. I hope to receive some help as to identify the type of tobacco. Once again, I am a young grower, not too experienced.
