crasch
Active Member
In May this year, I ordered some seeds for the cigar variety Paulista (PI 260363) from Victoryseeds.com. What little information there is in GRIN and the few photos from Victoryseeds don’t lead to high expectations, but I think the simple fact that it’s Brazilian and that it is a fairly uncommon variety sparked my interest. I’m writing here now to document my experience with it. It’s not a full grow log, but some notes that may or may not be interesting.
Around May 15, I put one seed each into a 72-cell 1020 and just left them on my back porch as a germination test. Germination wasn’t great at about 60%.
The seedlings just stayed in partial shade on my back porch, somewhat protected from the elements, and I gave them some water every so often. They got quite leggy. I did not put a lot of care into the seedlings because I knew that I would be away for a few weeks and there wouldn’t be anyone to take care of them while I was gone. I treated it as a germination test for a variety that I would grow in earnest at some point soon. On June 20, I left them for dead as pictured.
When I returned in July, the tray was badly dried out and most of the seedlings complete toast. However, some were barely clinging on to life and responded to watering.
Therefore, I decided to plant the few survivors in my plot at a community garden that just had some space become available. I had room for eight troubled seedlings. Most of them died shortly after transplanting and I kept replacing them until I ran out of survivors in the tray.
In the end two plants pulled through, despite their difficult upbringing. The photos below are from those two plants.
25 days after transplanting:
30 days after transplanting:
35 days after transplanting. They hit a growth spurt:
42 days after transplanting:
Flower heads are starting to emerge from both plants.
At this point the plants stand about 43” tall and the largest leaf is about 18” long. It’s a stout little plant.
The most noteworthy about this plant is just how much it seems to love the heat and humidity here. It’s August in Southeast Texas. During the last weeks that these plants have been out, the average daytime high temperature has been 95F, the average nighttime low 81F. Average relative humidity 72%. They get blasting sun all day. These last pictures were taken at 4pm when it was 101F out. No signs of wilting. Paulista seem to love it, more so than any other variety that I have grown so far.
I’ll be updating this with additional observations and photos as they become available.
Around May 15, I put one seed each into a 72-cell 1020 and just left them on my back porch as a germination test. Germination wasn’t great at about 60%.
The seedlings just stayed in partial shade on my back porch, somewhat protected from the elements, and I gave them some water every so often. They got quite leggy. I did not put a lot of care into the seedlings because I knew that I would be away for a few weeks and there wouldn’t be anyone to take care of them while I was gone. I treated it as a germination test for a variety that I would grow in earnest at some point soon. On June 20, I left them for dead as pictured.
When I returned in July, the tray was badly dried out and most of the seedlings complete toast. However, some were barely clinging on to life and responded to watering.
Therefore, I decided to plant the few survivors in my plot at a community garden that just had some space become available. I had room for eight troubled seedlings. Most of them died shortly after transplanting and I kept replacing them until I ran out of survivors in the tray.
In the end two plants pulled through, despite their difficult upbringing. The photos below are from those two plants.
25 days after transplanting:
30 days after transplanting:
35 days after transplanting. They hit a growth spurt:
42 days after transplanting:
Flower heads are starting to emerge from both plants.
At this point the plants stand about 43” tall and the largest leaf is about 18” long. It’s a stout little plant.
The most noteworthy about this plant is just how much it seems to love the heat and humidity here. It’s August in Southeast Texas. During the last weeks that these plants have been out, the average daytime high temperature has been 95F, the average nighttime low 81F. Average relative humidity 72%. They get blasting sun all day. These last pictures were taken at 4pm when it was 101F out. No signs of wilting. Paulista seem to love it, more so than any other variety that I have grown so far.
I’ll be updating this with additional observations and photos as they become available.