Yep, That's Burley Tobacco in Person Fields for First Time

Source from:  7/30/05 ByPHYLISS BOATWRIGHT, C-T Staff Writer 08/01/2005

Eight farmers in Person County are trying out a new crop this year, in hopes that it will replace some of the income lost from a downturn in flue-cured tobacco sales and the end of the tobacco price support system. That new crop is burley tobacco, which, until this year, had not been grown here. Derek Day, director of the Person County Cooperative Extension Service, said the eight growers planted about 100 acres of the new leaf and that it was "doing reasonably well" so far. "This is considered a new crop," said Day, "and farmers are taking good care of it. We're hoping it will be an alternative" to flue-cured tobacco, he said. Day said the burley, which will be sold at a market in Danville, Va., will bring an average of 15 cents more per pound than flue-cured tobacco, which had been the major money crop in Person County for more than 100 years. But that price advantage, he said, could be offset by labor costs. "Burley is very labor intensive," Day said, explaining that the whole plant is harvested, by cutting the stalk off at the ground, then splitting the stalk about four inches from the base. Farmers must then slide the plant over a stick. Five plants are hung on a single stick and then hung in a barn for air curing. Unlike flue-cured tobacco, no fuel is used to cure burley tobacco. But Day again cautioned that fuel savings could be negated by the costs of labor needed to harvest the burley. He said farmers would hang the burley in sheds or some may build structures especially for the curing. As for this year's flue-cured crop, Day said growers have begun harvesting and that the crop is "good, but we really need some water." He was speaking Thursday, before the rains began that night and into Friday. Flue-cured acreage this year is about two-thirds that of last year, Day reported earlier this summer, with about 2,000 acres planted. He said the past two weeks of record-breaking high temperatures had affected the tobacco crop, in that it "can go without water but it needs cooler temperatures" to thrive. "The hot weather is more damaging than no rain," he concluded. Day said this year's corn crop was currently at about 60 percent of where it should be because of a general lack of rainfall. Approximately 6,000 acres of corn are planted, which is about the same as last year, according to Day. "Corn really needs water," he said Thursday. Soybeans, said Day, had been affected as well, but with "good rains, the beans will catch up." Farmers here have planted about 10,000 acres of soybeans, an increase from last year, and about 6,000 acres of wheat, also an increase. Enditem