STORMS SLOW PLANTING IN DEEP SOUTH

 

A farmer clips his flue-cured in central North Carolina. File photo by Christopher Bickers. Georgia-Florida: Transplanting was delayed last Wednesday when a storm blew in with two to 12 inches of rainfall. It finally dried off enough early this week to resume setting…Moore says the state may not have enough plants to go around. That remains to be seen, but Moore notes, “No one is wasting any plants.” Fortunately, not much resetting has been required so far.   Thanks to wet weather, most of the Georgia crop will be planted on April 7 or later. This is beneficial since it helps in thrips control and by extension tomato spotted will control, says Moore...Mid-week temperatures in the upper 80s caused some concern about afternoon wilting of new transplants. NC 960, a relatively new flue-cured variety, is doing very well in Georgia, says Moore.”It produces high yield and high quality.” South Carolina: Farmers are a little less than halfway finished with transplanting, says William Hardee, S.C. Extension tobacco specialist. There seems to be tight supply of plants due to a combination of germination and disease issues (Rhizoctonia and Pythium) in the greenhouse. Hard winds struck the Pee Dee last week. Winds of up to 30 miles per hour that kept some from transplanting. “But thankfully there was enough soil moisture to prevent sandblasting,” he says. Much progress has been made since, with ideal weather this week. North Carolina: East of Raleigh, a few growers started transplanting nearly two weeks ago. But this was the first big week of transplanting, says Matthew Vann, N.C. Extension tobacco specialist. Normally, around April 15 is when the big transplanting push begins so we are right on schedule.” Plants have been doing well. “We have had warm air temperatures and warm soil temperatures for the last two weeks, and we've had some cloudless days,” he says. “All that really pushes the plant.”   As in the other flue-cured states, there is a possibility that the supply of plants in N.C. might not meet the demand. Vann is not sure. “There is no good gauge to tell how many plants there are going to be. But it looks to me that we will have enough plants to go around.” It would help if N.C. could get some rain, Vann adds.   Black Patch: Transplanting of all types is about two weeks away, says Andy Bailey, Kentucky-Tennessee Extension dark specialist. For now, the whole crop is in the greenhouse, where it has fared reasonably well. “It is growing fast with above average outside temperatures,” says Bailey.   There has been some damping off and above average cutworm damage.  Higher-than-average spring temper-atures may have contributed to higher adult black cutworm moth flights this spring: they may lay eggs just inside the greenhouse curtains and larvae hatch and damage young leaves. “No collar rot has been seen so far, but if there is a final cold snap in late April, we will likely see some collar rot following,” he says. Number one on the wish list for dark growers? No more angular leaf spot (ALS) or at least less than in 2023. Unfortunately, there are substantially no preventive practices they can implement to control the disease. “There are some dark varieties that are less susceptible to ALS, but these varieties have little or no resistance to Race 1 black shank,” says Bailey. The burley market is strong right now, and a niche market for burley is in production of ‘red leaf’ burley that is used in certain moist snuff blends along with dark tobacco.  Red leaf burley has been grown on a relatively small scale in the black patch for several years. More will be grown in the Black Patch than in any previous year. What is Red Leaf like? It features wide plant spacing, low plant populations, manual application of sucker control chemicals and no MH, similar to dark tobacco production practices. It is air-cured in conventional burley barns.   Kentucky: Seeding of tobacco transplants continues normally, with sixty percent seeded through April 14, according to USDA. Seventy-four percent of tobacco transplants were under two inches, with twenty three percent between two to four inches, and three percent over four inches. Conditions of these were overall favorable. In other tobacco news: The Excellence in Agriculture award conferred each year by the Tobacco Farm Family Life Museum went to Danny Kornegay of Kornegay Farms and Produce in Princeton, N.C. Vance Dalton of Statesville, N.C., received the Museum’s Innovative Young Farmer Award. The awards were presented at the N.C. Commissioner’s Breakfast at the Southern Farm Show in February. The museum is located in Kenly, N.C.