This is a report on harvesting tobacco leafs

All seeding,fertilizing and even ethics have been discussed here.

Tobacco

Around in the village there is a competition on who has the largest drying shed to show off, of course..

Early morning 7am off to work(late!) with a scenery not unpleasant to the eye.

The field 2.0 rai

The leafs are collected in used rice bags finally weighing approx 20ks each.

The bags are firmly closed with a hook like so

And from reports from friends in Phetchabun last week the price is extremely good this year.

And from reports from friends in Phetchabun last week the price is extremely good this year.

@Stoneyboy Thanks for giving a shout from the west. Most unfortunate our paths x-ed in opposite directions last week.

A whopping B75/ kilo is the going rate!

I tips me hat to the BURI King

Tobacco

The bags are being placed adjacent to the packing line

Loading up

Hauling from the field

This ETAC Holds 40 bags, but can do 50 or 60 depending on how bold the driver is

Fully Laden

Next post will be about unloading and sorting, thanks.

Tobacco ~a way of life

As you can see tobacco is very popular this season everybody is doing it

Even the tobacco spider came to take a peak, boy was i scared when i used the macro zoom

Unloading the ETAC to the airconditioned overhaulage plant

The leafs are neatly speared face to face on bamboo twigs(18 or 20 a twig) depending on the workers mood

The twigs are secured by this(free) inventive little piece of rubber(cut from old flipflops)

All this valuable tobacco is being guarded by the meanest bad ass village dog MhooYoung

And the fellow villagers are helping out to make a quick bath

Great thread, and a Farming practise I know little about.

Great presentation also ...

Great thread, and a Farming practise I know little about.

Great presentation also ...

I hope you're going to be working harder next time David.

If MissFarmGirl sees this you'll be in bother!

Great thread, and a Farming practise I know little about.

Great presentation also ...

I hope you're going to be working harder next time David.

If MissFarmGirl sees this you'll be in bother!

...

Actually, when I was at the Farm, her old man and MissFarmGirl and I were chatting about some Farm work and Farm Father said ... no need to bother, Falang just eat and sleep ... he holiday.

I was caught between and and accepted

Sorry Dancealot ... we digress ...

.

Thanks for all the support, guys +10

Tobacco ~Smoke 'm if you got 'm-"Are you kidding me? I am not going to smoke that!"

Early morning and it's hanging time

Admire the beauty of these rows of carefully assembled leafs on twigs

Moving the goods towards the drying shack

This is only the first batch of the first leg

This process is repeated until the entire field is stripped

With hot weather like this 30-40 days of drying

Empty field / First batch

The target is to gross 800kg(which is highly aimed) from this 2 rai. Do the math

I'll report back on the results

A great thread and great photos,I see you have got to grips with your new camera

Hope your not smoking your way through the family harvest mate !!!!

Allow me to stray before i post the drying- and selling process.

Harvesting in style using the shiny pick-up!

Last night i had a discussion with farm dad on how many bags would go on the Hillux. He claimed no more over 30
and i claimed i could make it 35 because the traditional stacking system lacked efficiency IMO.
Farm dad added wisely "no cheating, no back seat". Hahaha

Most trucks around here are stacked the same way. Leafs north / Stem south. Like so.

Common sense dictates to me if i use the european jing jang stacking method i can increase the loading capacity.Like so

35 on there with room left to spare.

Nice thread Danealot, great pics! So to obtain the tobacco seeds, what's the cost? Also forgive me if I'm wrong but tobacco grows it's own seeds from it's flowers right? Also how much water is involved in this 2 rai setup do you think?

Was showing my wife who says there's 3 grades of tobacco on the plant. Top is the weakest strength, middle is middle strength and bottom is strongest.

@Krisb

Costs

Your wife is right, the leaves that are ready to pick are at the bottom. In this pic the 2nd layer from the bottom is being picked.

This way they work from bottom to top. Sweeping the field in 2 or 3 harvests.

You are wrong in your speculation. No seeds are used but a certified(mouth to mouth, respect, trust and expertise biased) strain of fully grown 'baby tobacco plants'(freely translated from Thai) are bought in 1 big deal made by the villagers who are closest and friendliest to eachother to get the best price. What happens after the deal has been made is the 3 or 4 buyers will go with a truck and haul the baby's themselves with their own hands to maximise profits.

The costs of the baby varies from season to season depending on demand and availability. This is intrigeing to me because this micro-economic system is so complex and refined. Here is an example how profits can be maximised. I saw these guys this morning.

I was proud of my 35 bags(3 people), but check these guys out. They probably have 80 bags on the truck but they where with 5 persons. What does this do to their profit margin, i ask myself. I think they where with 5 because the owner could afford it and have their own little secular sub micro system which probably works and put a smile on the face of the owner or the boss. I will never know.

So in all fairness 100 baby's for B20.

Water

All depends on the season. This time it was dry season so precautions have been made.

If not your entire harvest could be going down the dry drain. So many factors have to be considered and so much experience is needed. 1 time the field had to be irrigated by hand....

I hope i was thorough enough.

Cheerio!

Tobacco~the selling process

Selling can be done in 2 ways basically.

One way is selling fresh leaves directly from the field, using scales a buyer and a seller. . Simple, really.

Bags weighing an average of 28kgs are packed and wieghed and counted and hauled on the buyers' truck.

8 bath/kilo is the price (bear in mind this is the maximum wieght of a tobacco leaf before drying).

This is the easiest and least profitable way of selling.

Stripped field

Could we move this to the "Stop Smoking Forum" ?

Thanksalot, Dancealot!

The best way to handle the tobacco is in the morning's when its moisturise. In the afternoons it will break!

After the drying is finished the tabacco is stored like so to keep the moisture in.

Not surprisingly the largest whole buyer on the tabacco is, yes the government.

Like this it's sold for B80/kg

Lomsak 2013

Tobacco post processing

Ok so when and where can i buy whole leaf tobacco? can any one help? I'm really serious about this

The best way to handle the tobacco is in the morning's when its moisturise. In the afternoons it will break!

IMG_3361 (1000 x 750).jpg IMG_3362 (1000 x 750).jpg

After the drying is finished the tabacco is stored like so to keep the moisture in.

IMG_3348 (1000 x 750).jpgIMG_3349 (1000 x 750).jpgIMG_3352 (1000 x 750).jpg

Not surprisingly the largest whole buyer on the tabacco is, yes the government.

IMG_3339 (1000 x 750).jpg IMG_3340 (1000 x 750).jpg

Like this it's sold for B80/kg

Dude, that is a beautiful sight!!!

Stupid editor first wouldnt let me post, then it doubled it!

just cleaning up the double post.

just cleaning up the double post.

Don't worrie about it. Thanks for you kind words. Tobacco farming is of great interest to me because I plan to live around the tobacco fields in the future.

Ok so when and where can i buy whole leaf tobacco? can any one help? I'm really serious about this

There are many tobacco farms in the North-East of Thailand. How much do you intend to buy? ...

Manually stacked tobaco leafs.

Ok so when and where can i buy whole leaf tobacco? can any one help? I'm really serious about this

There are many tobacco farms in the North-East of Thailand. How much do you intend to buy? ...

Not much, maybe 10kg or so. I want to experiment rolling my own cigs. Thias roll their own cigarettes, I figure I can roll my own Cig. The problem is getting some good whole leaf tobacco that i can use as longleaf filler, binder and wrapper. Finding good tobacco for wrapper will be the key.

So you want to use the leaf a a wrap? Thai cigars, hmmm.

The tobacco itself can be bought at the wholesaler at ridiculously silly cheap prices.

The leaves you will have to get from the farmers, so this means you will have to go into the villages.

I dont think Thai leaves can be used as the wrapper. I have to admit i'm out of my comfort zone as an expert on the construction of Cigs. I mostly deal at the other end of the Cig life cycle, namely the smoking end!

But as i've stated, the components of cigs are:The Filler, the binder, and the wrapper. Each is self explanatory. The binder is what you use to initially wrap the filler in,and compress to get its shape. The wrapper is the outside leaf which has to be blemish free and pristine.

Thats where the problem lies. From the looks on your pic's, the Thai leaf has way too many, and too large veins to use as wrapper. I think i can harvest in between the veins to get strips long enough to use as binder. and the binder strips i can small roll into the filler. So the hole is getting sufficient quality wrapper.

Theres a variaty of cig wrapper called "Connecticut Shade" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_shade_tobacco where the tobacco leaves are grown under a screen that screens off 60% (I think) of the sunlight. This reduces the sunload on the leaves, and in addition to the benefits listed in the above link, it also reduces incidence of blemishes, and with the reduced sunload, and increased humidity, reduces the size and quantity of the veins per leaf (pure speculation on my part). All the combinations listed above makes the Connecticut Shade a great wrapper. But i see no reason why the shading shouldn't work in Thailand, unless selective breeding has changed the genetic makeup of the tobacco.

Now all this is speculation on my part. And a shade experiment would be interesting to run, IF I had a farm. I dont think a non Cig smoking farmer would be interested lol. I do have some friends with family in Issan growing tobacco. Maybe i could talk one of them into trying it.

In the short run, I could try rolling some Cigs from a combination of bulk(your pics of the wholesale tobacco) and long leaf filler, binder, and selected binder as the wrapper. Just to see how it tastes. If the taste is off, nothing will help it. As my mentor once told me,

"you can put lipstick on a pig,

but its still going to look like a pig "

But to do any of this, i'll need to find a source of dried but still nimble (and preferably aged) whole leaf tobacco.

Ok i'm pulling the plug on this post. Its gotten WAY too long. Do you know of some farmers that i could get some whole leaves from at the next harvest? or are there any drying now that i could get some access to?

So you want to use the leaf a a wrap? Thai cigars, hmmm.

The tobacco itself can be bought at the wholesaler at ridiculously silly cheap prices.

The leaves you will have to get from the farmers, so this means you will have to go into the villages.

The term "bellyflop" comes to mind.

Thats what i want to do into that pile!

Just make sure someone follows me in with a lighter and an ashtray!

PS where can i find wholesale tobacco like that shown above?