Genetically engineering tobacco plants could enable a more sustainable production method for psychedelic drugs, which are increasingly in demand for research and medical uses
So the “sticks” that the tobacco goes on are like 5-6 feet long.
Each “bay” needs to be just wide enough for the stick to hang. When “up in a bay” you’re standing on the same thing the sticks hang on, so doing the splits for hours on end while doing manual labor.
Depending on barn, usually at least one person needs to be up in a “bay”. In my family barn we had one person on the ground, one standing on the second “bay” and then someone else a couple rows up above the floor. Like 2-3 real stories if we were talking a house. Because the “top” touched the less weight, that’s where the kids started lol.
Sometimes your lucky and the bays are made of cut wood, often it’s just a straight up fucking locust tree trunk, that’s not even tied down so it rolls side to side a little
The length of a bay varies, but when there’s not a lot on there, it moves/bounces. When you get far enough down the bay that it stops, it starts to sag and creak from the weight. Again, this whole time you’re doing the splits 10-30 feet off the floor of the barn.
It’s so hard to get down/up, you start taking water breaks in the top of the barn.
Where it’s hot as fuck and the air is full of dirt and tobacco dust, but at least you can sit on a beam for two minutes after constantly doing the splits.
Hell of a workout, just not as easy as driving a harvester thru a tomatoe field.
Quick edit:
But it’s not just scary. I saw an uncle have a “bay” break, and he fell maybe 20 feet with shit ton of tobacco and pointy sticks, and his leg went thru the floor of the barn, but he didn’t fall all the way thru.
He was fine, but all that weight and all those pointing sticks, at any moment something can give from the weight, and consequences could be fatal.
Hey maybe I’m being as thick as a tobacco leaf but I’ve been thinking about this and I don’t understand why the sticks the plants are being impaled on can’t be horizontal and spanning a 30 feet long barn? I remembered the ones I visited in Cuba were 10 feet high tops - that being said maybe they were a tourist version, who knows.
Edit: OK guessing you mean something like this:
Totally different scale and kind of operation from what I visited. They made us visit the cute ones I’m guessing.
Yeah, the picture in the comment is still small scale, but illustrated what I’m talking about.
So the bottom row, a guy standing on the ground does.
That second row, would have a guy standing on it. He do his feet, the row chest height, and then usually one more row above. Then another guy on top of that is as high as we’d go. So the higher up you are, the less you have to lift, but the scarier it gets.
I remembered the ones I visited in Cuba were 10 feet high tops
My uncle that fell out of a barn started using crazy long rows one high, and then he’d put tarps over it so it doesn’t get rained on.
It’s just takes up an insane amount of space, and the curing (drying process) isn’t as easily controlled, the plants on the end will all be lower grade. It’s sold via auction, so pennies a pound adds up.
In a barn there’s going to be narrow doors on the side that go up the whole length of the barn, every 10-20 feet.
Depending on conditions you open/close the doors to slow/speed the process. The better it goes the more you make when you sell.
Same principle as why you keep cigars in a humidor
So the “sticks” that the tobacco goes on are like 5-6 feet long.
Each “bay” needs to be just wide enough for the stick to hang. When “up in a bay” you’re standing on the same thing the sticks hang on, so doing the splits for hours on end while doing manual labor.
Depending on barn, usually at least one person needs to be up in a “bay”. In my family barn we had one person on the ground, one standing on the second “bay” and then someone else a couple rows up above the floor. Like 2-3 real stories if we were talking a house. Because the “top” touched the less weight, that’s where the kids started lol.
Sometimes your lucky and the bays are made of cut wood, often it’s just a straight up fucking locust tree trunk, that’s not even tied down so it rolls side to side a little
The length of a bay varies, but when there’s not a lot on there, it moves/bounces. When you get far enough down the bay that it stops, it starts to sag and creak from the weight. Again, this whole time you’re doing the splits 10-30 feet off the floor of the barn.
It’s so hard to get down/up, you start taking water breaks in the top of the barn.
Where it’s hot as fuck and the air is full of dirt and tobacco dust, but at least you can sit on a beam for two minutes after constantly doing the splits.
Hell of a workout, just not as easy as driving a harvester thru a tomatoe field.
Quick edit:
But it’s not just scary. I saw an uncle have a “bay” break, and he fell maybe 20 feet with shit ton of tobacco and pointy sticks, and his leg went thru the floor of the barn, but he didn’t fall all the way thru.
He was fine, but all that weight and all those pointing sticks, at any moment something can give from the weight, and consequences could be fatal.
Hey maybe I’m being as thick as a tobacco leaf but I’ve been thinking about this and I don’t understand why the sticks the plants are being impaled on can’t be horizontal and spanning a 30 feet long barn? I remembered the ones I visited in Cuba were 10 feet high tops - that being said maybe they were a tourist version, who knows.
Edit: OK guessing you mean something like this:
Totally different scale and kind of operation from what I visited. They made us visit the cute ones I’m guessing.
Yeah, the picture in the comment is still small scale, but illustrated what I’m talking about.
So the bottom row, a guy standing on the ground does.
That second row, would have a guy standing on it. He do his feet, the row chest height, and then usually one more row above. Then another guy on top of that is as high as we’d go. So the higher up you are, the less you have to lift, but the scarier it gets.
My uncle that fell out of a barn started using crazy long rows one high, and then he’d put tarps over it so it doesn’t get rained on.
It’s just takes up an insane amount of space, and the curing (drying process) isn’t as easily controlled, the plants on the end will all be lower grade. It’s sold via auction, so pennies a pound adds up.
In a barn there’s going to be narrow doors on the side that go up the whole length of the barn, every 10-20 feet.
Depending on conditions you open/close the doors to slow/speed the process. The better it goes the more you make when you sell.
Same principle as why you keep cigars in a humidor
Interesting, thanks.