WHAT FARMERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE PROGRESS OF THIS YEAR'S CROP

 

Rising from the rubble: The research station in Princeton KY, noted for its tobacco research, took a direct hit from a tornado the night of December 11, 2021, and it was substantially leveled. There was some fear that the facility might not be rebuilt, but the University of Kentucky showed its commitment to tobacco research by spending the money needed to restore it. Shown above is one of two new fire-cured tobacco barns that have been built. Restoration of the tobacco facilities at the station is expected to be complete by the end of the year. Photo courtesy of University of Kentucky.

Harvest is in full swing in South Georgia, says Brant Clifton, Statesboro GA, who is growing 127 acres of flue-cured this year. “We had a real good start. It got really wet from May 15 to four weeks ago. On this farm, I had 12 inches of rain during that time.” There was some leaching, he says, and a little of the crop drowned. “Some wasn’t quite drowned, but it flowered out real short. It will make a crop but it won’t have much weight.” Now, South Georgia is on the dry side and could use a little water. Dodging a bullet on plants: There was a serious possibility of a critical shortfall in plants in Georgia, but Clifton, who buys his plants from a commercial provider, avoided it. “We had good plants all season. But there were absolutely no extra plants to be had.” Another casualty of tobacco’s troubles: Shiny McLimore of Owensboro KY has operated a commercial plant business for nine years. But a declining market is forcing him to close down Green Leaf Seedlings. “Business this year was down to a sixth of its peak,” he says. “There just doesn’t seem to be a need any more for commercial plants.” He produced burley and dark plants and sometimes vegetable seedlings. “I didn’t want to do this but it is like anything else in business—if it isn’t generating adequate income, you can’t continue it.” He is growing 11 acres of dark fire cured this year and may continue that. To the east, in the Bluegrass, burley grower Hoppy Henton of Versailles KY says, “The crop here looks great. It could be one of the best crops we have ever had.” The area didn’t get any flood damage, he noted (see below). The prospects are good for burley on Stonbach Farms in Tipton Hill NC near Asheville. “If we get one more good rain, this will be a good crop,” says Conner Stonbach. “We got it planted the first week of June. Then we went three or four weeks with no rain. Then we got four inches in the last two weeks. Since then, our loamy soils close to the river have done well. But the tobacco on our clay soils--at the top of the mountain--have grown slower. The tobacco there is knee high now.” The Stonbachs are among the last tobacco growers in mountainous Western North Carolina.   A holiday from burley: In 2022, Stonbach and his father grew exclusively Southern Maryland tobacco, thanks to a contract available from a small cigarette company in Kentucky. “The crop looked beautiful in the field, but we lost a little at harvest,” Stonbach says. “The buyer wanted the tobacco cut green. It got a little brittle, and there was some breakage. We had to be careful handling it.” Maryland doesn’t weigh as much as burley. “It is not a thick leaf,” Stonbach says. "Our yield was 1,850 pounds an acre, which is low compared to what we get on burley here.” Offsetting that was the fact that the buyer provided the seed and sent a truck to pick the leaf up. “We like Southern Maryland. We might grow it again.” But they went back to all burley this season because of an attractive contract from the burley cooperative in Springfield TN.   A very promising dark crop in the Black Patch saw its prospects dimmed after nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Western Kentucky on Wednesday July 19, says Andy Bailey, Extension dark tobacco specialist for Kentucky and Tennessee. “There were reports of 11.4 inches falling in Mayfield and west,” he says. And that wasn’t all: The community of Cuba KY in the southwest corner of the state reported “ping-pong ball sized hail.” There was some wind damage also. One estimate suggested that 25 percent of the crop west of Mayfield and Murray had been heavily damaged. Looking forward, there will still be problems with crooked damaged stalks, which will interfere with sucker control and harvest. “If you are in this situation, you may need to forgo the standard manual dropline applications of contacts and local systemics, and just spray MH plus a local systemic over the top” says Bailey. “Unfortunately, you can damage crooked tobacco by just driving through it.” More projections from the July 12 Crop Production report from USDA. Following are the USDA's plantings projections of tobacco plantings in 2023, with a percentage comparison to 2022: FLUE-CURED: North Carolina, 110,000 acres, down four percent from last year. Virginia, 11,000 acres, down 5 percent. Georgia, 6,400 acres, up 6 percent. South Carolina, 5,400 acres, down 6 percent. United States, 134,300 acres, down four percent. BURLEY: Kentucky, 29,000 acres, up 3 percent. Tennessee, 3,000 acres, up 11 percent. Pennsylvania, 1,100 acres, down 15 percent. Virginia, 210 acres, down 8 percent. North Carolina, 110 acres, down 15 percent. United States 35,370 acres, up nine percent.   FIRE-CURED: 13,600 acres, down 16 percent.   DARK AIR-CURED: 3,700 acres, down 8 percent.   CIGAR FILLER: Pennsylvania Seedleaf (Only Pennsylvania plantings declared in this survey). 3,600 acres, up four percent.        SOUTHERN MARYLAND: (Only Pennsylvania plantings declared in this survey). 60 acres, down 40 percent.     ALL TOBACCO: United States, 193,180 acres, down four percent. DATES TO REMEMBER August 9. Bluegrass Tobacco Tour, 9 AM, at the Plant and Soil Sciences Field Lab, 2951 Agronomy Rd., Lexington KY. For more information: Call (859) 257-5110. August 10. Dark Tobacco Twilight Tour, 5:30 PM, at West Farm, Murray State University, in Murray KY. For more information, (270) 625-1560.