When we accompanied our daughter to the FFA National Convention in Louisville, KY, two years ago, we noticed that all the fences and outbuildings in an entire area out in the country were painted black. We noticed a group of men working in front of a barn, and stopped to ask them if they could enlighten us. Turned out the barn was chuck full of Burley tobacco which had been hung to cure, and they gave us tourista's the royal tour. Interesting to note that they were all in their late 60's and 70's, they all grow a couple of acres of burley on contract, and NONE of them smoke! One had worked for 30 years in a cigarette factory, and he told us that American Burley provides the bulk, but imported Turkish tobacco is blended in for the flavor.
The stalks are hung from lengths of lath between the rafters of the barn, and the owner of this barn said his grandkids climb up there with each individual lath. He gave us a leaf. It was supple and leathery when he took it out of the barn, but after 2 days in the trunk of the rental car, it was tinder-dry and shattered into a fine tobacco dust. I know this doesn't answer any of your questions, but you reminded me of our interesting experience. By the way, everything was painted black because in that part of Kentucky, there are itinerant painters who come through and paint barns and fences for hire. They mostly use discarded paint that has been mixed together, and that year's supply was dark, almost black.

i grew it. pelleted seeds are available online, i got mine at seedman.com. the plants were very easy to start from seed and i grew them to be about 6 inches tall. but then i quit smoking that june and destroyed them! :) i'm happy to be a non-smoker lol. easy to grow, if i still smoked i'd grow it.

We grow alot of tobacco, we have several types, the seeds are easily found online if you do a search,, differnt types of plants are wanted depending on your tabacco flavor choice,, as well as wether you want to make chew , ciggies or cigars, I cannot really tell you how it burns though since neither my husband nor myself actually smoke it except occasionally for ceremonial purposes, ours is grown primarily for culural reasons,,okay, maybe he has tried the occasional home rolled cigar
I can say that we have recieved the majority of compliments on the white burley which we have had special requests for,,
as to curing it that info can also be found on line,, my husband has his own methods he uses , we have found that it is an area where one needs to experiment a bit to find what works to get the best flavor,,
good luck hmmm
jwj