I sometimes think it would be good to grow a little tobacco in case times get tough - use it for barter - neither hubby nor I smoke and neither do our kids.
We nearly made a critical mistake, using left over starter soil from last year. It contained mold that wasn't destroyed when we baked the soil in cooking bags.
A light blend of hydrogen peroxide knocked down the mold, but we're still watching for a recurrence.
Our Alissum seeds have sprouted in two days ...
Tobacco can be VERY labor intensive unless you use the various sprays and such.
When I was a youngster just keeping the plants suckered was a weekly job that I hated. By the end of the day we would be covered in a black gum that only LAVA soap could cut off and our clothes could stand up by themselves.
Then there were the worms, grubs that attacked the underside of the leaf and could destroy a tobacco plant in short order.
The only way to get them was lift each leaf, pick off any worms, drop them on the ground and step on them.
End of day covered in tobacco gum.
Then there is the harvesting.
Bright tobacco is picked as each leaf cures on the stalk. Then the leaves are strung and hung in temp controlled barns until they are fully cured.
Flue cured tobacco, like we raised, was harvested by first splitting the stalk from top to 8 or 10 inches from the bottom. The plant is then put on a stick and hung on scaffolding until the field was finished.
Once the tobacco was cut it was transported and hung in a tobacco barn for curing.
Curing the tobacco was done in the same way meat is cured. Small fires that produced as much smoke as heat. No flames but smoking coals for about a week with someone staying up nights to mind the fires.
Once the tobacco is cured the leaves are stripped from the stalk and separated into Lugs, Fillers and wrappers.
Each group was split into three designations;
sorry lugs (worst)
lugs (average)
good lugs (best).
Once everything was sorted the wrapping started. Leaves were bundled into “hands” and help together by one leaf called the Cap that was wound around the stem end and tucked into the Hand to keep the leaves tightly bundled.
At the sales barn sloppily tied hands were discounted as buyers figured if your Hands were tied sloppy you were sloppy about other things as well.
Just writing about this has made me tired! :-P
In a barter society you would probably be competing against farmers with lots of background and experience.
Its a lot of work that could probably be put to better use planting other crops.
In a SHTF scenario tobacco will bring a premium price but the cost in time and labor is high as well.