Zimbabwe: New Tobacco Seed Varieties Promising

Source from:  All Africa 09/18/2013

The Tobacco Research Board says new tobacco seed varieties on trial by growers were proving popular with farmers due to their quality. The two new varieties are T71 and T72 and will be officially introduced in the market in the 2015-2016 cropping season if accepted by farmers.

Under the trial phase, TRB released the new tobacco varieties to a limited number of farmers in all the tobacco growing regions. TRB acting general manager Dr Dahlia Garwe told New Ziana that data from the trials carried out during the past two farming seasons was positive.

"TRB has two new tobacco seed varieties currently on trial. They are very promising and according to data from the past two seasons the varieties are quite good.

"Farmers want the T72 variety more though," she said. The seed varieties are resistant to at least nine tobacco diseases and produce about 4,5 tonnes of tobacco per hectare.

Tobacco seed varieties being grown by most farmers on average produce two tonnes of tobacco per hectare.

Dr Garwe also expressed optimism that the new seed varieties will be accepted by farmers when finally released on the market.

"If the seed varieties are accepted by growers, then we can be able to unveil them to all farmers," she said.

TRB has over the years been overwhelmed by demand for tobacco seed. This season, it has 4 000 hectares of seedlings which is 70 percent higher than last season. This is because a high number of growers are leaving other crops like cotton and maize for tobacco which they consider to have higher financial returns and is also marketed orderly.

Tobacco is one of Zimbabwe's major agricultural exports, accounting for 10,7 percent of gross domestic product. Enditem