I am growing Aztec, and Limonka Rustica this season, and it’s my first growing for harvest. Do you have any experience growing or processing leaf, I can’t wait to see how it turns out, even if I only get a few pounds of “choice leaf”.
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Some of my rusticas from last summer. Topped plants yielded two times more. Potency-wise, nothing to write home about, maybe a tad above 2% nicotine. What I like about rustica is that it can be flash-dried and turned to smokeless without any curing, green.
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I’m curious to the origins of Aztec. I’ve lived in Grand Azteca a good part of my life and the only thing I’ve seen grow wild is a tree type rustica. The Aztec also only use the plant for ceremony and offering.
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Is that right?, Rusticas can be flash dried green for use as a snuff.
Is there any difference between leaf picked before or after turning ripe? If I were to guess, I would presume the leaf is ripe.
My grow didn’t amount to much this season, I had my spacing off, and the plants should have been way closer. I had no idea that the sizes of them were so small, I think a square foot would be plenty of space and sun light.
The Aztec had very satisfying alkaloids, but, I think I prefer the Lemon Rustica for ease of curing. I bagged the Aztec seed heads with bags made of agrigon15, and kept the blossoms trimmed from the rest of the Aztec.
I allowed the Lemon to open air pollinate and they were the only tobacco allowed to Flower in open air. So the seed I have now has its purity preserved. I'm hoping that the patch is going to self seed in the spring, I only put the lemon seeds in the patch.
22 tiny plants, were less than a pound of yield, I would estimate this season. Oh well, learned a lot.
Aztec Rustica/Rapi Nui strain from Easter Island.
It’s claimed to be a native strain in central and south America, yet is good in cool climates and has tolerance towards frost, could be characteristics from history in high elevations.
It grows to 30" high, leaves air cured from medium to dark brown, produces a mild smoke with very high nicotine and other alkaloids.
Nicotine can get so high by growing with use of plenty of fertilizer, that plant can be used as a insecticide by::::: allegedly making tea
Soak leaves in water, tea is then sprayed on other plants, this may keep bugs off of them up to 6 weeks. I think I will try this, I am going to make structures for yellow jackets to build there paper nests near garden. This summer I had a yellow jackets nest tameD and they didn’t bother me, they didn’t sting anyone at all.
Nicotina Glauca. The only native tobacco type plant to Azteca since the Portuguese then Spanish forced them north, into the mountains. The U.S. government bases ancestral land claims on a scope of ~400 years yet the Aztec have been 200 miles further north of Mexico City for 500-600 years. The “noble savage” trope in tobacco marketing is a bit dry at this point. I could never introduce an anglo product to my Pueblo friends with their heritage on it.
Just don’t forget; everything we know and discuss regarding tobacco is written in the blood of 10s of millions of human lives. Perpetuating names related to bloodshed is distasteful. Hitler didn’t have shit on Latins nor Saxons. And that’s still recent history.
By “flash dried” I meant drying faster / with lower air humidity) than colour curing would need. Yes, ripe leaves, preferably, yet harvested while still green on the plants.
Grassiness can be masked (if desired so) by medicating with menthol, camphor, eucalyptus or other strong flavourants. Think Green Dragon.
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Green Dragon is a fave that I actually had for breakfast this morning! I can’t believe Green Dragon has chlorophyll intact, you know you could use Rose colored snuff to clean a very house. Rose can cover nearly any environmental smell but I had no Idea.
Green Dragon has rose and menthol doesn’t it?
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I’m quite fond of GD, too. Been ages since I had my last pinch of it, though. Not sure about rose… I would’ve described it as menthol + something vanilla-ish. Julius from 5 Minutes Tobacco noted that it might be pandan. Might be a wee bit of cardamum, too.
By the way, this very same snuff is also sold under “Begum Green Nasal Snuff” name. Lady Green, yes. The label is ornated with a photo of 6P owner’s wife. You can also see her shining on the labels of Begum Brand Pathani and Punjabi snuffs (oral moist and oral fine snuffs they are, naswar and tapkir, respectively) and M.(onika) G.(rover) Madras Snuff 100-grammer. Price comparison:
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So Begum Green and Green Dragon are the same snuff with different names? Then Begum Green must target the Indian market while Green Dragon is targeting the International market.
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This, yes.
Some snuffers claim that the very same snuff also hides under FUBAR Boss label, but I haven’t tried it.
Some more pictures of green.
Moist, medium-coarse, moderately alkalized homegrown rustica snuff:
Blending tobacco (cigar) flour with green rustica effectively masks the green (and grassiness):
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I can’t wait till spring 25’, I have been working on bud bags.
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