US: Tobacco Harvest Drags on, Leaving 2014 Production Unclear

Source from:  Southeast Farm Press  10/29/2014

The mystery of how much tobacco would be produced in 2014 continued past mid-October, a time when the volume is usually clear.

But flue-cured was late in development this year, with much more than normal still to be harvested.

Of all the tobacco-growing areas, the biggest question mark was the flue-cured in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.

How long would harvest last? It certainly appeared likely to go on into November. The commissioner of agriculture in North Carolina, Steve Troxler, jokingly commented at the North Carolina State Fair that one farmer in his home county of Guilford had told him that if the weather held up, he hoped to finish on Thanksgiving Day.

That was a joke, but it reflected the fact that the flue-cured tobacco in what used to be called the Old Belt had reached maturity much later than normal.    

In Henderson, N.C., north of Raleigh, Tom Shaw said on an Oct. 17 visit to the fair that he was still pulling leaf. "We will finish up next week. Some farmers in my area will take longer than that. We had a lot of water this season. The leaf is not the best quality, but the yield is good."

He has excess production beyond what was contracted. "But we think we can move it all."

In Oxford, N.C., near Henderson, Pat Short of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture said, "We have had a very good crop at the tobacco research station here this year. The rain was quite adequate."

There is still more left to harvest. "We need about two more weeks. We hope it doesn't frost before then. Much of the crop was just beautiful in the field." Short helped provide some extremely ripe leaf from the station for the North Carolina State Fair's tobacco tying contest.

Not everyone got rain when they needed it. As Bennie Lee of Sanford, N.C., southwest of Raleigh sold sodas at the TGANC booth at the fair, he said that his crop hadn't turned out as well as he had hoped. "It just wasn't a good season. We would never get an inch of rain. Either we got 5 to 7 inches or we wouldn't get any, and we had extremely dry spells followed by extremely wet spells. Under the circumstances, I guess it came out all right."

Don Nicholson, a North Carolina Department of Agriculture agronomist who works in an area just east of the Piedmont, said conditions were similar there. "We still have tobacco out. A few will be harvesting till November 1 if they can, but a lot will finish this week."

Overall, the crop was good to excellent, he said. "Farther east, it's been worse because of rain. The leaf there is light and washed out."

It definitely paid to spoon feed nitrogen this season. "Last year, the rain came in early. This year it was more mid season and later. The question was how much nitrogen to put back, if any. We are a lot lighter on yield but the quality is excellent."

In Virginia, where all the flue-cured is grown in the Piedmont, only 57 percent had been harvested by Oct. 14, well below the 70 percent of a year ago.

The situation looked a little better for burley. In the two major burley states, harvest was nearing its end as of Oct. 14, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

It projected that 93 percent of Kentucky tobacco had been cut by that date, close to the five-year average. That indicated that growers had caught up some, since they had reportedly been "way behind" in mid September.

"We had a problem with rain," said Bob Pearce, University of Kentucky Extension tobacco specialist. "It stayed so wet that you couldn't do anything. Some farmers may not have all their tobacco cut before first frost."

In Tennessee, the estimate of stripping completed was 37 percent compared to 47 percent at this point a year ago. Enditem