Grant will Help Scientists Extend Growing Range of Burley Tobacco

Source from:  By David Rice JOURNAL RALEIGH BUREAU 04/18/2005

Golden LEAF Foundation will provide $264,800 to researchers at N.C. State RALEIGH For more than 65 years, the federal tobacco-quota system kept burley tobacco confined mainly to the hills of North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. But geographic restrictions on where burley can be grown are gone with the federal buyout of the quota system. And researchers at N.C. State University are angling to help growers in Piedmont and Eastern North Carolina grow burley, too. So the Golden LEAF Foundation, which receives half the state's tobacco settlement money, approved a grant of $264,800 last week for scientists at N.C. State to research burley production and teach farmers in the Piedmont and the east how to cure it. "It's a new day for the tobacco-growing community," said Valeria Lee, the president of Golden LEAF. Though Golden LEAF was established in part to help tobacco-dependent communities diversify, Lee defended the grant to help farmers grow more tobacco. "Our research told us that the market is still there for burley tobacco, in particular," Lee said. "So it's a question not of whether it's going to be grown, but where. There is a market, and someone's going to fill it." She noted that the foundation has made other grants to help tobacco growers diversify - grants for soybeans and other grains used to make biodiesel fuel, for example. Though burley is generally known as a mountain tobacco, the N.C. State effort will install curing structures and research plots at research stations near Whiteville, Kinston, Rocky Mount and Reidsville - far to the east of the plant's usual environs. "It's to determine where burley can be successfully produced," said Tommy Bunn, the executive vice president of the Leaf Tobacco Exporters Association and a member of Golden LEAF's board. "The intent is to find how far it can move east. "We're not trying to move burley production out of the North Carolina mountains," Bunn said. "We're trying to find a way to supply a market that's already out there." Burley tobacco typically accounts for about 30 percent of the leaf used in U.S. cigarette blends, while flue-cured leaf accounts for 60 percent and Oriental tobacco 10 percent. With leaf prices falling after the buyout, though, many small-scale burley growers in Tennessee and Kentucky are expected to stop growing tobacco. In Kentucky, the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative predicts a 30 percent decline in the burley harvest this year. So cigarette-makers are studying whether burley can be grown in Mississippi, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, as well as North Carolina. The N.C. State researchers say that Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Universal Leaf have contracted with 250 farmers in the Piedmont and the coastal plain of North Carolina to grow 2.5 million pounds of burley this year worth about $3.75 million. "If production in 2005 is successful, there is the potential to expand production to 100 million pounds in the next five years, which can produce $150 million in farm income for producers in North Carolina," the researchers wrote in their grant application. Though flue-cured and burley leaf are grown in similar fashion, they are harvested and cured differently. Burley growers harvest the entire stalk of the plant, rather than one leaf position at a time. They hang the stalks to air-dry, rather than using forced hot air as flue-cured farmers do. And they strip the leaves from the stalk after curing. Loren Fisher, a professor of crop science at N.C. State, said that researchers must train Cooperative Extension Service agents to work with farmers accustomed to growing flue-cured leaf. "Our tobacco growers in North Carolina are hungry to try something new and expand production," Fisher said. "You've got farmers here who are experienced at growing tobacco who have a strong desire to grow more tobacco." The researchers also plan to study ways to use fumigants to control a bacterial disease called Granville wilt. Granville wilt is prevalent in Eastern North Carolina, Fisher said, and burley varieties have not been bred yet to have a resistance to the disease. Bunn and others view burley as an income supplement for flue-cured farmers. Growers in the east might have their usual contracts to grow flue-cured leaf. "Then they'll have 5 acres on the side of burley, to see if it can be done," Bunn said. Though mountain farmers typically grow burley in 2- to 3-acre plots, Mike Boyette, a professor of agricultural engineering at N.C. State, said that growers in Eastern North Carolina probably won't approach burley the same way. "They're just flat out not going to do it that way," he said. "If they can only do an acre or two acres or three, they're not going to do it. So the key, to me, is mechanization. ... To make it viable, I think you're going to have to do 5 to 10 acres to start with." The researchers will experiment with machinery to cut burley stalks when the plants are harvested, Boyette said. Endtiem