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| topping
 topping tobacco is removal
of the bloom or flower near the time when the bud first appears.
If the flower fully develops then the plant will cause the plant
to use its resources for seed production and not to increase
the size of the leaves. This causes the yield of the harvested
plant to be compromised.
topping is usually done by hand
in burley tobacco production but is done mechanically in some
flue-cured operations. The removal of the inflorescence bud
or "top" allows "suckers" or axially buds
to begin growth. This type of growth can greatly hurt the yield
and quality of the tobacco. "Suckering" was done to
remove these buds by hand but now chemicals are used to help
prevent the sucker growth.
 These chemicals were developed
in the 1940’s and have reduced the hand labor in the crop
tremendously.
There are two main types of the
sucker control chemicals, contact chemicals and systemic chemicals.
The contact chemicals work by burning the young suckers that
are newly formed. The systemic chemicals inhibit cell division
and can either work locally or throughout the entire plant.
Maleic hydrazide is the most common systemic chemical used for
sucker control that is used to stop sucker growth.
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