Dry Spell Could Hurt the Quality of Tobacco Leaf

Within a span of weeks, the outlook for some Kentucky burley tobacco has soured amid worries that a dry spell could hurt the quality of leaf hanging in barns to cure before going to market.

In Henry County, where farming is the economic backbone and burley remains an important cash crop, some leaf is turning a yellowish color brought on by the drought that has stretched into curing season, said Steve Moore, the county's agricultural extension agent. The fear is tobacco companies won't have as much appetite for off-color tobacco.

The result could be lower prices at market, he said, unless timely rains salvage curing season.


"Right now the tobacco producers are nervous," Moore said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

"There's still those questions - how will the market accept some tobacco that went into the barn in good shape, but probably isn't going to come out of the barn in as marketable of shape."

Not long ago, the mood was much better in the county as the burley harvest produced good yields, Moore said.

That upbeat outlook has changed in some areas during the curing process, when long green tobacco leaves gradually change to the preferred reddish brown tint that prepares the burley for markets opening in November.


Kentucky is the nation's top producer of burley tobacco, an ingredient in Viceroy cigarettes.


Moore said the dry, hot weather has resulted in "flash curing" of some leaf, causing the undesired yellowish color.

At a meeting this week with area farmers, officials from one prominent tobacco company stressed that yellowish and other off-colored leaf was not desirable, Moore said.

"And that's where they left it," he said. "So the farmer has to suppose at this point that those colors will not be rewarded at the marketplace."

Most burley farmers sell leaf under contracts with tobacco companies.

In Bourbon County, average burley yields could be down about 500 pounds per acre from a year ago due to the dry spell, said Glenn Mackie, the county ag extension agent. The drought's biggest impact could be on leaf curing, he said.

"We're still not too late for that to change, but at this point we're entirely too dry for good curing," he said.

Across Kentucky, just under half the state's tobacco crop now stored in barns was rated in fair or poor condition, according to this week's crop report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service's Kentucky field office.

The situation isn't uniformly bleak, though. The report said that 41 percent of the tobacco crop was in good condition and another 12 percent was in excellent shape.

Just over 80 percent of the burley crop had been cut as of Sunday, the report said.

In south-central Kentucky, tobacco growers in Barren County have benefited from some timely rains, though dry conditions have set in during the past week, said county ag extension agent Gary Tilghman.

"I haven't had any reports of anybody having problems with the tobacco drying out too fast," he said.

"It looks like a nice crop right now," he added.

In Tennessee, tobacco yields are down also due to dry, hot weather.

"Across Tennessee we are going to see a slightly below-average yield compared to our last five to 10 years and it is mostly due to drought in some parts of the state," said Paul Denton, burley tobacco specialist for the University of Tennessee extension service. "It's more that rainfall have been spotty overall."

The National Agricultural Statistics Service's Tennessee office rated 53 percent of tobacco crop in good to excellent, 36 in fair condition and 11 percent poor to very poor.

Burley tobacco is air cured, meaning no heat is applied, so it is at the mercy of the weather, Denton said.

"Dry, hot weather of low humidity during curing will definitely give an off-color type leaf," Denton said. "And when you get that type of tobacco, a mottled reddish, brown-yellow type color, it is definitely discounted in the marketplace and that comes from too rapid of drying."

Denton said Tennessee's humidity has stayed high in the night and in the mornings, so producers there are not seeing the coloring problems that growers in parts of Kentucky have seen.

The USDA has forecast leaf production of 180 million pounds across burley-producing states, down 16 percent from last year. Kentucky's production is expected to be 130 million pounds, 19 percent below 2009.

Meanwhile, drought conditions have prompted Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear to extend his request for federal disaster assistance to 55 counties. His latest request on Wednesday added 20 counties to the 35 originally included in the appeal for help from the USDA. The counties are mostly in western and central Kentucky.

In Henry County in north-central Kentucky, there's still time for a turnaround for the leaf, Moore said.

"It's still not time to call this a disaster," he said. "We've still got time for a lot of this tobacco to come out of the barn looking good and very marketable."