Tobacco farm tour - Connecticut

As part of our long weekend away (started with the big NY Herf), I spent a couple of days at the in-laws in CT. While I was there, I got a tour of the farm where my brother-in-law works full-time and my father-in-law works as needed (he's retired). Just recently, the farm owners bought a piece of land and are in the process of moving the farm (buildings and equipment) onto the new land. This will be the first year they are using this land as their primary farm. My BIL is the head-mechanic and all around fixer of stuff at the farm. My FIL is the driver for the big trucks and some of the heavy equipment. He showed me around on Monday, Feb 19...it was freezing a$$ cold that day, but very clear. Just for you guys, I got out of the warm truck and took some pictures.

Here's a barn the are moving.


The roof and some rafters:


A finished barn and the pillars for the next barn in the foreground:


A full shot of the pillars for the next barn:


Scraps from the previously assembled barns:


Inside an assembled barn. You can see the numbering system on the post.


An old truck they use around the farm. You can see more numbers used during the re-assembly.


A shot down the outside of the barn. You can see the concrete pillars and how the bottom of the barn walls can be flexed out to allow for ventilation during the curing process.


Inside one of the greenhouses. They heat them with propane heaters but the heaters are not hooked up yet. Just with the solar heating, the inside was warm and balmy, even though it was about 12 and windy outside.


I turned around and took this shot to give you some idea of the size of the building.


continued....

The pump house and water storage tank (black tank) behind it. My BIL and his crew did all the fabrication for the tank including mounts, walkway, access ports and plumbing. They scrounged an old fuel tank and had it sandblasted inside and out to clean it.


My BIL's new office in the maint building. He's not yet moved in....


Maint building, parts room, spare nuts and bolts:


Even though they are not yet moved in, work goes on...a tractor in for maintenance:


Tractor, front half:


Tractor, back half:


Some kind of special sewing machines that sew the tobacco leaves together so they can be hung to cure.


Closeup of the sewing machine:


The old farmhouse has been turned into the office. We went inside and I met the farm manager. He even gave me a couple of cigars.


An excavator that my BIL bought as a rusted up bone and fixed up.


They start the plants out in the greenhouse in the early spring and after they get a certain size, they transplant them in the field. Once they start to grow, the plant is loosely tied to an overhead wire. As the plant grows, it is wound around the string to keep it growing straight up. When the leaves are harvested, they pull them off one set at a time, working from the ground up. Each set of leaves is harvested at different times with the top leaves being harvested last. The leaves are sewn together and hung in bundles in the barn to cure. The barn can be opened for ventilation, closed and even heated as necessary to control the curing process. By the fall, the leaves have been packed and repacked, sorted and eventually packed into containers and trucked to NJ for the boat trip to DR.

Some numbers...

11,200 plants per acre
140 acres planted by the farm

That's about 1.5M plants and they touch them all by hand over and over and over....

The manager of the farm told me that his family farms 2000 acres of corn in the midwest with 3 guys.

To farm 140 acres of tobacco, they employ 280 (some are seasonal, only 8-10 or so are full-time).

Pretty interesting. Thanks for the tour.

Very cool Joe, thanks a lot. Now for the important question, how were the cigars that they gave you........ :thumbs:

That is so coll. Do you know if they do tours for the general public or possibly if someone called in?

Joe thanks for sharing. Let us know how those cigars smoke :thumbs:

The cigars he gave me were a Gispert (he had a box sitting out on the table) and a nice Montecristo tubo he had stashed in his desk for special visitors...

The other farm they cooperate with (Windsor Shade) grows wrappers primarily for Fonseca.

It was a pretty cool operation and would really be something to see in full swing. I don't think they give tours to the general public, but they did tell me that if I wanted to really experience the "farm", I could come back anytime in the season and they would let me have a "farm work day", no charge! :laugh:

It's a big operation and it is pretty amazing when you consider how much manpower is involved. For an American farm it isn't very mechanized. The tobacco leaves used for cigars just require to much TLC for a machine, I guess.

Just down the street there is another farm that is switching from shade tobacco to broadleaf this year. I got the sense that the farmers were sort of trying to find a profitable path each year....letting some info out, keeping other info pretty tight...kind of like NASCAR in real slow motion. They drive up and down the road and can see each other's operation...sometimes they cooperate, sometimes they are in competition. Plus it is a small town, so it's hard to keep secrets.

It would be fun to follow a tobacco leaf from planting to cigar, just to see all the processes involved.

Another interesting fact. 1 tablespoon of seed will plant about ten acres.

Thanks for the tour!! The pictures were great!! :thumbs:

That's to bad. I'll pass on the work day. I grew up in Westfield, MA.. Just the otherside of Southwick and Granby, Ct. My brothers and sisters worked both towns. My Dad couldn't understand why I, wouldn't work tobbacco when my turn came up. :whistling: Screw that!!!!!

What town is the farm in Joe?

Thanks for the pics....very interesting.

coventrycat86 said:

What town is the farm in Joe?

Click to expand...

Altadis Shade Company?

Beats - Altadis Shade Supply! :whistling:

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wow - can't even find it! hmmmf.

Very cool, Joe. Thanks!
It was great meeting you at the HERF!

i've been through the Bloomfield area many times, and driven through the shade tobacco groves, looks great in the summer. a friend of mine in Enfield has an old tobacco barn in his backyard that still smells of shade tobacco.

Very cool, Joe. Thanks for bringing us along on the tour!

Wilkey

Awesome! Thanks for sharing these! :thumbs:

The in-laws live in Enfield and although I don't know my way around very well, I think we were still in Enfield.

That's cool thanks for the info and pics.

Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing. It's amazing what it takes to make a cigar.