A FIVE PERCENT SMALLER FLUE-CURED CROP?

In North Carolina, a good rain is also needed in much of the Piedmont. The high temperatures and  humidity are leading to stress, says Paul Westfall, Extension agent in Granville County. "Tobacco is looking good in some areas, not so good in others." Topping and sucker control is under way, he adds. 

In Kentucky, the crop is 95 percent set with 12 percent in bloom.

In Tennessee, all but seven percent of the crop has been set, and nine percent topped. In Cheatham County, just west of Nashville, pop up showers, producing heavy rain at times, reportedly kept most or the field work to a minimum last week. Some tobacco was topped and sucker control applied. In Wilson County, just east of Nashville, spotty rains across the county caused feast for some growers and famine for others. "Feast folks cannot get field work done, and famine folks need rain," said Extension agent A. Ruth Correll.

In Virginia, Grayson County in the Blue Ridge mountains had yet to see a significant dry spell of the type you expect most years by July 8. But it reportedly has not been excessively wet, meaning that growing conditions have been good.

In western North Carolina: 96 percent of the burley crop had been set by July 8. Weather conditions last week were reportedly on the warm side with slightly above average temperatures. Scattered rain showers and afternoon thunderstorms limited some field activities in Yancey County, on the Tennessee line--most areas receiving between 1.75 to three inches of rain for the week.

Another foreign competitor! The southwest African country of Namibia is cooperating with a Chinese company in a proposed joint venture to create a 10,000-hectare tobacco-producing operation in the country's northeast. To put that in perspective, that level of plantings would be about equal to what South Carolina and Georgia together planted last year. The venture has obtained some but not all of the government approvals it will need for the project, which will also produce corn. The type to be grown has not been specified but is assumed to be flue-cured, since that is what China has typically imported. Whatever the type, the tobacco will be  100 percent exported to China.