A Georgia tobacco field after Idalia blew through. Photo: Josh Dawson, Lowndes County, Extension agent.

A crop report for September 1

FLUE-CURED

GEORGIA-FLORIDA

It was a situation Georgians don’t like to even think about: A hurricane coming in before Labor Day on a tobacco crop that was late already. The result, says J. Michael Moore, Georgia-Florida Extension tobacco specialist: Tobacco in Georgia and Florida took a savage pounding from Hurricane Idalia, and growers will lose substantially in terms of fewer leaves to harvest, interruptions in curing power and worst of all, potential loss of quality in the leaf that managed to stay on the stalk. “Growers who had good crops with significant leaf still in the field will see declines in their yield and quality in the next few days,” he says. He doesn’t have an estimate yet on total losses in the two states.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Idalia passed through South Carolina. But its effect on the state’s tobacco could be described as a “near miss.” First off, much of the crop had been harvested. At the time of the hurricane, harvest in South Carolina was 75 to 80 percent complete, says William Hardee, S.C. Extension tobacco specialist. “We got a lot of rain from the storm, four to 12 inches depending on where you were.” Marion and Horry Counties seemed to have had the most. “ There will be some drowned tobacco in the low areas. “ Wind didn’t seem to be much of an issue. “I noticed where I was that most of the wind activity was up in the trees rather than down at ground level. But with the weaker storms, it usually takes a day or two to really see if we are getting that quick ripening response in the plant. ” There was a loss of power in some areas, but the outage only lasted a few hours,” he says. Tropical storms are never a good thing for a tobacco crop, “but growers came out as good as you could hope for." Overall, this season has been a mixed bag with the weather, says Hardee. "It depended on where you are in the state and the timing/amount of rainfall received. I think we generally have a crop of decent yield and quality, but some areas have certainly fared better than others.”

NORTH CAROLINA

Tar Heel tobacco growers benefited from a lot of luck when Idalia came though. It rained on a number of areas in N.C. but tobacco wasn’t major in any of them. "We missed Hurricane Idalia big time," says Matthew Vann, N.C. Extension tobacco specialist. "The rain was the main thing with us, and we were glad to have it." Carolinians are well along in harvest." I have heard that a number of growers are stripping their crop already. I would guess that we are over half finished by now." Growers gave been lucky in the field too. "We haven't had any out-of-the-ordinary disease or insect problems. This has been as good a year for disease and insect management as we have had in years."

VIRGINIA

In Charlotte County in south central Virginia, certain areas have been dry. But the county got some needed rain this past week, says Joanne Jones, county Extension agent. Burley harvest has just gotten started, while flue-cured and fire-cured harvest is well along…Connecticut broadleaf leaves are thin, and the weight will be down. There are two or three growers, and they made a point of cutting and spearing the stalks, then getting it quickly on a scaffold wagon so that it never let it touch the ground…Charlotte County produces a wide range of tobacco. Ranked by acreage: Flue 437; Burley 70; Dark fired 10.2; Cigar 13.5; Dark air-cured 8; Maryland 8.

BURLEY

TENNESSEE

A strong market for burley in a few months appears to be in the offing, says Daniel Green, chief executive officer of the Burley Stabilization Corporation (BSC) in Springfield, Tn. “That’s because there is a worldwide shortage of burley due to bad weather that lowered production in some of the other burley-producing countries. Additionally, the number of farmers willing to grow burley is declining [in light of] strong profitability from alternative crops.” By Green’s calculation, demand for this crop will be around 70 million pounds. He thinks American farmers won’t deliver more than 50 million pounds. BSC raised its contract price this year to nearly $2.50 a pound. That seems likely to wind up looking like a stroke of genius if the supply falls this short of demand. “We have seen some of our old export customers who had gone away coming back to us,” says Green. One factor in our favor: South American burley is much more expensive than a few years ago.

KENTUCKY

Burley is well into harvest. “We are probably close to 50 percent harvested and in the barn,” says Bob Pearce, Kentucky Extension tobacco specialist. “Most of the crop looks good but there has been too much rain and wind in some places. We did have heat and high humidity in some areas last week. Pearce says there is little cured leaf, so quality can’t be judged, but he believes that it will be good. There has been none of the angular leafspot that plagues dark tobacco in the Black Patch, largely because burley is not nearly as susceptible to the disease as dark. There has been a little black shank and a lot of tomato spotted wilt virus. But the spotted wilt, though widespread, is not severe, says Pearce. “All in all, we have a definite potential of a good crop.”

DARK & WRAPPER

BLACK PATCH

There’s been an awful lot of angular leafspot on dark tobacco in Western Kentucky and north Central Tennessee in the last month. “We had a disaster because of this disease in 2016,” says Andy Bailey, Kentucky-Tennessee Extension dark specialist. “This does not quite rise to that level, but it is the worst since then.” He says it is worst on the earlier set dark fired crops--in May--while tobacco set in June—the later crop—hasn’t been hurt as much.” Angular leafspot is a bacterial disease that usually appears only after severe weather. That is certainly what happened here: The westernmost part of the production area received 7.5 to 12 inches of rain on July 19, then more frequent rains through mid-August. “Probably 25 percent of our dark fire cured crop and some of our dark air-cured was severely damaged by the water, mostly by drowning, from the July 19 rainfall. Angular leaf spot may have damaged another 25 percent of the dark crop since then. Some of this crop will never get harvested.”