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Tobacco Yields Good, Curing Difficult
By
Laura Skillman
LEXINGTON, Ky., (Oct. 31, 2007) – The state’s tobacco crop
seemed to brush off this summer’s drought and yielded well for
growers who saw most of their other farming enterprises languish
in the hot, dry summer and fall.
The crop likely will yield close to last year’s level, said Gary
Palmer, tobacco specialist with the University of Kentucky
Cooperative Extension Service. However, dry conditions have made
curing tough, and last week’s heavy rains came too late for much
improvement for most tobacco crops.
Tobacco requires several weeks of curing to change it from a
green color to yellow to dark brown. During this process,
chemical changes occur in the tobacco to bring it to the quality
tobacco companies desire. Under extremely dry conditions,
especially with low humidity, tobacco mostly just dries up
rather than cures, Palmer said. If the process is too quick,
some of the harsh chemicals and yellow color are left behind,
making the leaf a less than desirable product.
That is what happened this year in many tobacco barns in
Kentucky. The crop is curing with a color that companies have
not been keen to purchase in the past. This will be the first
crop with this particular coloring since tobacco production
switched to a free market system from the old production control
price support system.
In 1999 under the old production system, tobacco that was
considered too high in color and therefore of poorer quality,
was primarily rejected by companies and ultimately ended up
being discarded, Palmer said.
“I hope companies are a little lenient on color this year,” he
said. “Some growers are teetering on whether to continue, and
this could affect their decision.”
How they purchase this year’s crop could play an important role
in whether companies maintain their grower base. If companies
purchase the crop without huge discounts, it could encourage
producers to stay in business and even encourage additional
production, Palmer said.
The recent moisture may help a few crops if tobacco is going to
hang in the barn for a while, but higher temperatures are needed
to create the proper chemical reaction needed to improve
quality, Palmer said.
With larger acreage and reliance on migrant labor, most farmers
don’t have the luxury of waiting in hopes the quality might
improve, he said. In their case, the rains are helping tobacco
to get pliable enough for farmers to remove it from the barn,
strip the leaf from the stalk and prepare it for market.
About a quarter of Kentucky’s tobacco crop has been stripped,
according to estimates by the Kentucky Field Office of the
National Agricultural Statistics Service. The service reports
that farmers are rating the quality of the crop as mostly fair
to good.
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Contact: Gary Palmer, 859-257-8667
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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