tobacco farm
January 16, 2011 10:24 AM Subscribe
Homegrown tobacco?
Let's say you smoke about two packs a day. You decide "fuck this, I am done paying all these punitive taxes" and are going to grow all your own tobacco.
Also assume you are OK with smoking home rolled / not factory packed smokes.
1. Based on that consumption rate, about how much land do you need? How much of your time becomes devoted to tobacco farming?
2. How illegal will this be? I'm curious for both Canadian and US contexts.
3. What will go wrong?
Let's say you smoke about two packs a day. You decide "fuck this, I am done paying all these punitive taxes" and are going to grow all your own tobacco.
Also assume you are OK with smoking home rolled / not factory packed smokes.
1. Based on that consumption rate, about how much land do you need? How much of your time becomes devoted to tobacco farming?
2. How illegal will this be? I'm curious for both Canadian and US contexts.
3. What will go wrong?
Not an answer to the three questions you have posed but I know that Horizon Herbs sells tobacco seeds. They are in Oregon. I'm in Canada and have bought lots of seeds from them over the years with no problems with mail delivery. Their tobacco set has some information about drying and curing.
http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=767
posted by Fred Wesley at 10:58 AM on January 16, 2011
http://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=767
posted by Fred Wesley at 10:58 AM on January 16, 2011
You'd probably be better off finding somewhere that sells you tobacco leaves by weight. There are a few places that do that, which I'll leave to your googlings.
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on January 16, 2011
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on January 16, 2011
This probably won't be a great help, but I remember my dad growing his own tobacco and smoking it within a couple of years. He grew it well in a greenhouse. Size wise, I guess it depends a lot on ow much you smoke.
posted by sockpim at 11:13 AM on January 16, 2011
posted by sockpim at 11:13 AM on January 16, 2011
From a little googling it looks like farmers sell their tobacco for around $2 per pound, and it takes around 1.7 pounds to make 1000 cigarettes, so that puts the raw cost of materials at about 7 cents per pack. Tobacco farms are surprisingly small, with a yield of around 2400 pounds per acre (for flue-cured) and many farms falling in the 20 acres or less size. So just in terms of the farming aspect, yeah, you probably wouldn't need much space at all and your total work would be minimal. You would need to figure out how to cure it though which is probably the hardest part.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:14 AM on January 16, 2011
posted by Rhomboid at 11:14 AM on January 16, 2011
According to the USDA, for commercially cultivated flue cured tobacco the yield is about 1000kg / acre. A cigarette apparently has 0.76 grams, but in my experience a home rolled will have more, let's say 2 gram per rollie.
Smoking two packs a day, which means 40 cigs, = 80 grams / day
Comes out to about 30kg of dried tobacco. At commercial yields this would require 120 square metres. If you're in a rural area with a suitable climate, that seems manageable.
posted by atrazine at 11:28 AM on January 16, 2011
Smoking two packs a day, which means 40 cigs, = 80 grams / day
Comes out to about 30kg of dried tobacco. At commercial yields this would require 120 square metres. If you're in a rural area with a suitable climate, that seems manageable.
posted by atrazine at 11:28 AM on January 16, 2011
According to the USDA, for commercially cultivated flue cured tobacco the yield is about 1000kg / acre. A cigarette apparently has 0.76 grams, but in my experience a home rolled will have more, let's say 2 gram per rollie.
I wonder if those yields are fresh or dried? It wouldn't take much space to produce a few pounds of fresh (wet) tobacco leaf, but I'd imagine it's many, many times the space to produce 2 pounds of dried tobacco. I've grown and dried my own fresh herbs, and I recall winding up with something like 1/20th the weight dried, that I started with fresh.
posted by xedrik at 11:52 AM on January 16, 2011
I wonder if those yields are fresh or dried? It wouldn't take much space to produce a few pounds of fresh (wet) tobacco leaf, but I'd imagine it's many, many times the space to produce 2 pounds of dried tobacco. I've grown and dried my own fresh herbs, and I recall winding up with something like 1/20th the weight dried, that I started with fresh.
posted by xedrik at 11:52 AM on January 16, 2011
I live in an area in Massachusetts that grows tobacco (mostly used for cigar wrappers, or so I'm told), but the farms themselves are fairly small to fill an entire drying barn with tobacco. I'd guess <>
Your biggest worry, I think, in growing it year after years are pests such as tomato/tobacco hornworm, but those are easily controlled.
posted by plinth at 12:05 PM on January 16, 2011
Your biggest worry, I think, in growing it year after years are pests such as tomato/tobacco hornworm, but those are easily controlled.
posted by plinth at 12:05 PM on January 16, 2011
3. What will go wrong?
From what I've seen of them, they're quite ugly plants.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:33 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
From what I've seen of them, they're quite ugly plants.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:33 PM on January 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
I was surprised to learn recently that one of the places I often by vegetable seed, Pine Tree Garden Seeds, sells tobacco seed as well.
posted by librarina at 5:29 PM on January 16, 2011
posted by librarina at 5:29 PM on January 16, 2011
xedrik, the figures were given for "flue dried tobacco", so I assumed that it meant dried.
posted by atrazine at 8:19 PM on January 16, 2011
posted by atrazine at 8:19 PM on January 16, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Felex at 10:38 AM on January 16, 2011