When and how to collect tobacco and properly dry it at home

Having your own garden and vegetable garden is an opportunity to eat your own vegetables and fruits all year round. Preserving the crop from parasites and pests is one of the main concerns of gardeners. The use of toxic insecticides jeopardizes the safety of the food grown, but there is another, safer solution.

Many plants accumulate organic protective substances - alkaloids. One of them - nicotine - is found in tobacco, which is grown everywhere by advanced gardeners.

The main stages of preparing tobacco at home

Tobacco increased. What to do next with it before using it? The plant must be properly prepared and dried to ensure that the resulting sushi contains sufficient nutrients and nicotine.

Procurement stages:

1. Collection of mature leaves.
2. Languishing and yellowing.
3. Drying.
4. Fermentation to increase the amount of nicotine.
5. Final drying.
6. Sorting sushi.
7. Grinding.
8. Storage.

Each stage of preparation has its own characteristics and secrets.

Tobacco collection

Tobacco leaves on the bush ripen in tiers from bottom to top. The first lower tier can be plucked 40-45 days after planting, when flower buds appear. After the same period, the next tier is torn down and so on.

There are 4-8 tiers on one bush, which are harvested one by one.It is worth picking only those leaves that are at the stage of technical maturity, then they gain a sufficient amount of nicotine.

Indicators of maturity of tobacco leaves:

• the density of the leaf plate increases, its surface becomes sticky;
• the color of ripe leaves changes to light yellow and yellow-green;
• light spots appear on the petiole - this is what accumulations of starch look like;
• the edge of the leaf blade becomes wavy and falls to the ground, but the lower leaves may not have spots or waviness;
• the petiole is easily separated from the stem;
• At night, mature leaves do not rise to the stem, but remain in a horizontal position.

For garden use, it is allowed to collect a small amount of overripe raw materials, although its effectiveness after drying is reduced due to an insufficient amount of nicotine. Overripe leaves are less dense, yellow, and may have brown spots on the surface.

To reduce drying time, the leaves are collected in the evening in dry weather, before the evening dew falls.

Lightly pressing on the petiole, separate the leaf blade from the shoot. It should break off with a characteristic click. If, when pressed, the leaf does not break off, but bends down, this is an indicator of the immaturity of the raw material.

Parts of the plant damaged by plant parasites are separated at any stage of maturity; they can be used for compost or burned without drying and crushing when fumigating fruit trees.

To obtain tobacco powder, you can cut off the entire tobacco shoots when the bulk of the leaves are ripe. Tobacco stems contain less nicotine, but more mineral nutrients; they are more profitable to use as fertilizers.

Simmering and leaching of tobacco

When languishing, the leaves turn yellow, but remain alive, that is, chlorophyll disappears from the leaf blade. Simmering is called primary fermentation. The essence of languishing is keeping raw materials at high humidity and medium temperature. Leaching temperature 25-35°C, humidity – 80-90%.

The collected leaves are washed from dirt and dried, then placed in cardboard boxes and covered with a damp cloth. The boxes can be placed in the basement or greenhouse. The leaves are moved 2-3 times a day so that they do not rot or become moldy.

For fair ones tobacco varieties simmering takes 3-4 days, for dark green varieties - about a week. When languishing in the basement due to a drop in temperature, the period may increase.

When the leaves are tired, yellow and limp, you can begin the drying process.

Tobacco drying

How to dry tobacco? Drying at home does not require much time or resources.

Air drying

You can dry it hanging in the sun, in an apartment - on a windowsill or radiator. Yellowed, exhausted leaves are strung on a strong rope so that they do not touch each other, and hung under a canopy or in the attic. In sunny weather, the threads are hung in an open place. At night, the leaves are covered with gauze to collect dew to reduce drying time.

In an apartment, leaves can be laid out in one layer on a windowsill or radiator. The leaves are turned over periodically to ensure even drying.

Natural drying time is 12-30 days depending on temperature and humidity.

Tumble Drying

When artificially drying, you do not wait until the leaf turns completely yellow; you can dry it when the leaf has become one-third yellow. The leaves are laid out on the racks of an electric dryer or tobacco dryer in 1 layer.

When using a special drying device, you will need a minimum of costs, since it contains programs for natural temperature regulation. The optimal temperature regime for tobacco is a gradual increase in temperature from 33 to 70°C over 5-7 days. Having loaded the tobacco into a special dryer, you set the desired mode and leave it until you get the result.

To dry tobacco in an electric dryer, you will need a device with a temperature regulator for the blown air. For 5 days, every day the temperature on the regulator is increased by 10 ° C to maintain the temperature regime.

Oven drying

This process is similar to the fire drying carried out in tobacco production, with its help dark and strong varieties of tobacco.

Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper and line it with tobacco leaves in 1 layer. There is no need to preheat the oven before drying. Dry at minimum temperature (80-90°C) with the door open.

To prevent the leaves from burning, they are placed on the upper level of the oven. Depending on the design of the oven, the drying time will vary; it usually takes 8-10 hours to obtain soft tobacco or 15-20 hours to obtain a strong variety.

Determining the readiness of sushi

Dried tobacco leaves are light brown or dark brown in color and crumble when rubbed between your fingers. The vein of such leaves is fragile and breaks rather than bends if you try to bend it. The best indicator of readiness is an aromatic tobacco smell. If the leaves are overdried, they have black spots, or are completely black, the smell becomes unpleasant, sharp and burning.

Tobacco fermentation

This process increases the free nicotine content. In plant cells, nicotine accumulates in vacuoles. For it to come out, the cell must be destroyed or the nicotine must be washed out of the vacuoles without destroying the cells with an alcohol or vinegar solution.

For fermentation, the leaves are crushed, placed in a glass jar and poured with a small amount of alcohol or vinegar (about 1-1.5 tbsp per 10-15 g of raw material). Then the jar is hermetically sealed, shaken so that all the leaves are evenly wet, and left in a dark place for a week.

After 7-10 days, the tobacco leaves are removed from the jar and dried in air.

Note. The described fermentation method is suitable for tobacco used as an insecticide in horticulture. When using tobacco for smoking, vinegar is not used during fermentation, but instead of vodka, cognac, whiskey, alcoholic herbal tinctures and other aromatic alcoholic drinks are used. Smoking is bad for your health!

Tobacco used as fertilizer is not fermented.

Sorting dry leaves

After drying and fermentation, the leaves are sorted by color. Burnt illiquid goods are thrown away. The blackened part of slightly burnt leaves is separated. Darker leaves contain more nicotine, which can be used first, while lighter leaves can be stored for long-term storage.

Tobacco grinding

To obtain tobacco powder, dry leaves can be ground in a coffee grinder or manually in a mortar.. After the first grinding cycle, the powder is sifted through a fine sieve, and large parts remaining on the grate are ground again.

To obtain fertilizer, the leaves can be crushed by hand, rubbing them between your fingers, then you will get larger particles.

Attention! Use gloves and a respirator; tobacco particles can cause severe irritation and redness of the skin.

Tobacco storage

Tobacco is well stored, retaining its properties for up to 5 years. Store it in airtight plastic, glass and metal containers in a room with low to moderate humidity. You can use plastic bags with a plastic zipper.

During storage, the aroma of tobacco may decrease, but its insecticidal and nutritional properties will remain. If the temperature changes during storage, the color of the leaves may change.

Spoiled tobacco acquires an unpleasant burnt or rotten smell and turns black. If moisture gets into the dryer, the tobacco may become moldy. Such tobacco is thrown away or buried in the soil, away from beds and fruit trees.

Methods of using tobacco in gardening

Gardeners use tobacco as a component of fertilizers, since the leaves of this plant accumulate up to 5% nitrogen, 1-3% potassium and 2% phosphorus.

Typically, crushed tobacco leaves are mixed with mineral fertilizers and applied to the soil in the following quantities:

• when planting garden trees, add 1-2 cups of tobacco fertilizer into the holes;
• before sowing lawn grass, add 30-40 g of fertilizer per 1 m² to the soil;
• after harvesting, to restore the soil, the soil is mixed with a tobacco-mineral mixture at the rate of 100 g per 1 m²;
• for feeding indoor and potted flowers ½ tsp. fertilizers are mixed with 10 liters of planting soil.

In addition to nutrients, tobacco contains a toxic substance - nicotine (up to 1%), which does not accumulate in growing plants and quickly decomposes into non-hazardous substances. That's why tobacco is an environmentally friendly insecticide.

Tobacco powder, infusion and decoction of tobacco leaves are used as a pest control agent:

1. Tobacco powder is mixed in equal parts with ash or lime and the plants are pollinated with a dry mixture at the rate of ¼ cup per 1 m².
2. Half a glass of tobacco leaf powder is poured into 1 liter of water, boiled for 30 minutes and left in a dark place for a day. After filtering, adding 2 liters of water, dissolving 10-15 g of soap in the resulting broth. Plants are sprayed with tobacco decoction 2-3 times every 7-10 days; spraying is stopped 15 days before harvest.
3. The infusion of tobacco leaves takes 2-3 days to prepare. To obtain it, pour ½ cup of tobacco powder into 1 liter of hot water and leave in a dark place. The finished infusion is filtered, 1-2 liters of water are added, and 10-15 g of soap are dissolved. Spraying is carried out similar to spraying with a decoction.
4. To combat pests fruit trees are fumigated. Small firewood, shavings, and tree bark are lit in a metal container. When the fire starts, tobacco powder is poured on top. The trees are fumigated for 0.5-2 hours. This treatment is carried out after the flowering period so as not to frighten off pollinating insects.

Conclusion

The described recommendations tell you how to collect tobacco and how to dry it at home. To reduce the time of preparing tobacco, it is optimal to dry it in a special dryer. All stages of tobacco procurement take an average of 15 to 45 days. The finished product is used as an environmentally friendly fertilizer and insecticide.