Well,
I do not have any seeds. Never thought about that since i quit smoking 8 years ago.
I just spent 2 months this summer on my friends farm on Koh Samui and studied the Thai local manufacture of Baiya and Baiyasoob ( the tobacco and the finished product).
I planted seeds (lost those images), grew the plants with the natives. Helped harvest the leaves, prepare them for the lumphao (ancient chopping instrument used to shread the tobacco), and then lay it on trays to dry in the sun. Later, people come in trucks and load the tobacco and take it to the mainland and south to Yala district where it is processed into local cigarettes like buglar and Top Tobacco.
Here is a picture of the drying trays
Sorry I cannot post a lot of the images because Mark Merlin and I, along with my colleague in Bangkok, are writing a paper for the Journal of Economic Botany on the complete cultivation of the tobacco. I have more than 1 few hundred images. Maybe later I can post a few more if anyone is interested.
I saw at least five other growers of the leaves on the island. Probably more than I could image.
Each farmer grows fifty kilos a year. There are hundreds of such growers in the southern provinces of Thailand. They get $200 dollars each for their fifty kilos.
Some of the growers chew kratom and others betel nut. They also collect coconuts all day, tend cattle, feed chickens, prepare fertilizers and composts, Shuck husk coconuts and burn the shells and hairs. Tend water buffalo and other cattle, often moving them from shady area to other shady areas throughout the day.
It is a hard life and they are at it from sunrise til sunset.
boomer2