Farmers Warned on Tobacco Sets From Florida

Source from:  gcnewsgazette.com 01/18/2007

The Council for Burley Tobacco in Lexington is warning growers to stop buying tobacco mini-plugs (small plants) from Florida. "This is the third year in a row that blue mold was reported first in Kentucky before any of the other burley producing states," the council said in a letter to growers. Dean M. Wallace, executive director of the council, said "it has been well documented that the 2006 blue mold epidemic was directly linked to mini-plugs brought into Kentucky from Florida." He said the early outbreaks in Kentucky "strongly suggests that for the past three years, the blue mold was introduced from Florida and not from wind blown spores." Wallace estimates that the 2006 blue mold invasion cost Kentucky farmers at least $7.3 million in lost production and-or in increased chemical costs. "Less than 1 percent of our tobacco plants were imported from Florida," he said, "but that 1 percent put 100 percent of our growers at risk." Wallace advised growers that "if you need to buy mini-plugs or plants contact your county extension agent to find out where you can buy Kentucky-grown plants." Wallace outlined the 2006 epidemic as first showing up in MaGoffin County on May 23, and infected float beds were found in Morgan County on May 25. The next day, he said, a contaminated transplant facility in Boyle County reported the mold. "All cases to this point were directly linked to mini-plugs from Speedling's facility in Florida," Wallace said. "The mold arrived on shipments into the state during the second and third week of April." By early June several Eastern Kentucky counties had reported blue mold on seedlings associated with mini-plugs, he said. "And secondary spread from float beds and infected plants already set had reached Bourbon County. By mid-July, the blue mold spread had reached its peak, Wallace said, "extending to Western Kentucky but concentrated primarily in Central and Eastern Kentucky." Dr. Kenneth Seebold, plant pathologist at University of Kentucky, confirmed the '06 blue mold outbreak in 53 counties, including Grayson, Hardin, Breckinridge, Ohio and Hart counties. The bulk of the counties affected, Seebold reported, were east of Interstate 65. Enditem