US: Heavy Rains Damage Lincoln''s Tobacco Crop, Increase Chances for Disease

Source from:  The Interior Journal  07/25/2013

Lincoln County farmer Boyd Coleman won't have much money left to burn after this year's tobacco harvest.

The continual rains that soaked Lincoln County in early July delivered a knock-out blow to as much as 4 acres of Coleman's tobacco crop, stunted more tobacco beyond that and increased the possibility of disease eating into his bottom line.

"That hurts. That's going to make my payday a little bit smaller," Coleman said. "I do have some crop insurance that's going to offset that some … but it's not as good as if I could have had a good crop and gotten it to the market this fall."

Coleman isn't alone — the heavy downpours that rained out the last three days of the Lincoln County Fair also damaged a quarter or more of the entire county's tobacco crop.

"I'm estimating 25-30 percent of our crop has severe damage," said Dan Grigson, Lincoln County's agricultural extension office agent. "There's probably five percent that will not be harvested."

An additional 10-15 percent has suffered moderate or light damage, meaning as much as 45 percent of the county's third-largest farm product — behind beef cattle and grains — was impacted negatively, Grigson said.

Coleman said he knew what was going to happen after the rain finally cleared out.

"Just as soon as the sun popped out that Sunday, the leaves started scalding down," he said.

Looking out over his damaged tobacco field, Coleman said some of it is trying to come back and does look better than it did shortly after Independence Day, but most of it won't be worth harvesting.

While Coleman's healthy tobacco is nearly shoulder-high, the yellowed plants in the worst-hit portion of the field barely top his work boots.

Coleman, who grows a total of 70 acres of tobacco around Lincoln County, said damage to his crops was largely contained to this one 5-acre field east of Stanford.

Farmers from McKinney to Crab Orchard have reported similar damage, Grigson said.

Coleman said his 5-acre plot produced about 14,000 pounds of tobacco last year. This year, he'll be lucky if it produces "a couple thousand."

Beyond the initial weather damage, the excessive moisture has opened the door for a variety of fungi and molds that ruin tobacco plants, Grigson warned.

Target spot, frog-eye spot, round-spot fungus and black shank are among the diseases Grigson said Lincoln County tobacco plants are susceptible to this year. There's also the possibility that blue mold — a "devastating disease" for tobacco crops — could show up in Lincoln County, he added.

While blue mold usually sticks to the east coast, odd weather patterns during the rain meant some storms were traveling east to west, potentially bringing blue mold with them from Virginia, Grigson explained.

"We anticipate a likelihood that the blue mold will show up any day," he said.

Grigson said he recommends treating tobacco with a product called Quadris, which helps prevent all of the potential diseases including blue mold.

Coleman said this is the first time since he began farming on his own in 1996 that there's been any substantial water damage to a tobacco crop. Crops have been damaged by drought, hail and other factors in the past, he added.

Damage to tobacco crops hits harder than damage to other crops because of how labor-intensive the crop is, Coleman said.

"One guy can take care of 1,000 acres of corn by himself," he said. "Tobacco is a laborious crop. … It's a lot of money that goes into it and lot of hard work."

Grigson said Lincoln County's corn and soybean crops have fared much better. Loss due to water damage on those crops is projected to be less than 1 percent, he said.

Coleman said his grain crops have a much brighter future than his tobacco this year.

"I think we'll probably have a bumper crop on corn and (soy)beans," he said. "I think there will be a large corn crop out there. My corn that I have all looks extremely well." Enditem