Ok, time to be technical..
I will refer to cigar tobacco only.. pipe tobacco (ie perique, virginia etc etc has different yields and different distance between plants when planting them into the soil).
The seeds are pre-nurtured into small plants that are then transfered into the field and planted with about a distance of 3 ft. which is the normal for ordinary manufacturing and smoking tobaccos in most parts of the world. 1 to 11/2 ft. for Cuba and Sumatra types. Cigar tobaccos become coarse if planted too widely. An acre of tobacco planted 3 ft. by 15 in. will contain 11,600 plants and 3 ft. 6 in. by 15 in., 10,000 plants.
After transplanting the crop takes about another sixty days to mature, i.e. about 120 days in all from the date the seed was sown. Great care is taken when judging the ripnes, what leafs to harvest when and how many to leave on the plant to allow blossom and thus getting seeds for next years crop.
Air curing is essentially similar to sun curing. The tobacco is hung in a barn in which there is a free circulation of air during dry weather. Artificial heat may be resorted to in bad weather; in the States, cigar tobaccos and White Burley are usually cured in this way. The process takes about six weeks.
By whichever way treated; the tobaccoleaf after curing is brittle and cannot be handled without crumbling to powder. The contents of the barn are therefore left till moist weather occurs, and then by the admission of atmospheric air the leaf blades absorb moisture and become soft and pliant. In this condition the leaves are stripped from the stems and sorted into qualities, such aslugs, or lower leaves, firsts and seconds.
These are made up into hands, or small bundles of from six to twelve leaves. Each bundle is tied round with a separate leaf, and in this condition the tobacco is ready for bulking for fermentation.
The tobacco, whether in bundles, hands or separate leaves, is piled up or bulked on the floor in a barn into a solid stack to the height of 5 or 6 ft. Within this stack a process of fermentation is quickly set up, and the temperature &rn of the mass rises steadily till it reaches about 1300 F.
Great care is now taken to prevent overheating and to secure the uniform fermentation of all the tobfi~o. The pile is from time to time taken down and rebuilt, the tobacco from the top going to the bottom and that exposed at the edges being turned in to the centre. In from three to five weeks the fermentation should be sufficiently carried out, and the leaves then have a nice uniform brown color. Dark-colored leaves are produced when the temperature is allowed to mount higher than when light leaves are required. Fermentation is essentially a chemical process due apparently to the presence of enzymes, developed in the leaf during the earlier curing stages. The view has been put forward that fermentation is due to the activity of bacteria, distinct types occurring in various tobaccos, but the balance of evidence is against it. On the bacterial theory it was thought possible to inoculate a poor tobacco with, say, the special bacteria present in Cuban tobacco, and so give the product the aroma and other good qualities of the more valuable tobacco. When fermentation is completed the tobacco is graded, an operation carried out very carefully in the case of the better cigar tobaccos, and packed for export, cigar tobaccos in bales, and other kinds in hogsheads. It is then kept at a moderate and fairly uniform temperature in a warehouse, when, although there is no marked outward change, the tobacco becomes more mellow. Two years are usually required for ageing, but some tobaccos are kept for four or five years before being manufactured.
Yield per acre and how many cigars??
The average yield per acre in the States as a whole in 2003 was 870lb New Hampshire had the highest average, 1785 lb per acre, and Mississippi the lowest, 440 lb.
cuba? The leaf known as Vuelta Abajo, produced in the province of Pinar del Rio, is perhaps the best cigar leaf of the world. The other tobacco-producing provinces in order of importance are Havana, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba. The crop is mostly grown in the open, air-cured and carefully fermented. Cuban tobacco is grown as a winter crop, the summer months being those of high rainfall. Cultivation under shade was recently tried with satisfactory results; 166.65 acres cultivated under cheesecloth produced in 1903 10 bales of wrappers and f5 bales of fillers of tobacco per acre, the output under the old system having been 4.5 bales of tobacco per acre of which only 1o% represented wrappers of good color.
How many cigars do I get out of my bale of tobacco.. well.. hrmm.. we need to know the size of the stick for that... the smaller the cigar, the more leaf are going to be suitable (unless you are talking machine made short filler cigars.. leaf size doesn't matter then as they as chopped up). The smaller the cigar, the more leafs fit and the less weight per cigar. Controversy, the bigger the vitola, the less of your leafs are going to fit, this is why larger vitolas exponenaly becomes more expensive.. the weight difference can't justify the rapid price increace in larger cigars.. it is more costly to make them due to less leafs having the necessary dimensions and the increased sorting is costly.
But a corona on average weights about 7.8 grams and a robusto about 11 (same as a dalia actually). A churchill about 16-18g and a double corona about 20g... but it would be really hard to work out the amount of cigars you get out per acre.. to many variables....
hope that helps and if you give me more specifics in terms of tobacco strand used, where planted etc.. I can see if I can expand upon this.
Cheers,
Hawkan
