Re: Why not to plow

Posted by georgeky on May 12, 2007 at 06:43:36 from (205.188.116.138):

In Reply to: Re: Why not to plow posted by the Unforgiven on May 11, 2007 at 22:28:21:

That is the difference, most tobacco fields are small Ranging from 1/2 acre on small farms to a few acres. They rarely exceed 10 or 12 acres due to the lay of the land here. On some farms there might be 20 to 30 acre plots. It takes over 300 man hours to raise one acre of tobacco. We have never steamed tobacco beds here, I don't know what purpose that would serve. Some farmers do use steam engines in the fall and early winter to bring hanging tobacco in case. In order to take it down out of the barn, it has to have enough moisture in it that the leaves do not crumble when handled. When mother nature doesn't provide the moisture in some cases the steam engine does. As for tobacco beds they are usually grown now days in a greenhouse or in trays placed to float in outdoor water beds covered by a canvas. Some folks myself included still raise them the old fashioned way by plowing beds 12 feet by 100 feet the old timers burned these with a sled made from some kind of rails and a screen. They would pile the sled full of wood and start on one end of the bed and let it burn for a while, then pull the sled up a little and burn another spot, This kills the weed seed and makes a fine seed bed. This practice is no longer used by anyone that I know. The newer method is to make the bed cover with plastic and open cans of methyl bromide and let set for a couple of days to kill the weed seed. Methyl bromide has been outlawed and the other gasses that were used as well. After gassing seed is mixed with a bucket of fertilzer blended just for seed beds and sown by hand or one of those little push buggies. Then the beds are covered with a cotton canvas, actually it is not cotton anymore, but is on the same principal. Lots of these techniques vary from one region to another even from one type of tobacco to another. Nearly all Burley tobacco is cut by hand and placed on 4 1/2 foot sticks then hung in a barn and spread out on the stick to cure. This job will seperate the men from the wimps. Other types are picked by hand in the field and then cured with gas in a air tight barn. This is refered to as priming they pick only the ripe leaves at bottom of stalk first and then come back in a few days and pick a few more. This is done in several stages. It really looks funny to pass a field with only 3 or 4 leaves left on the top of the stalk. In burley which is what is grown here after curing and taking out of barn it is stripped off the stalk by hand and put in a baler made from plywood and baled. Now it is ready for market. I hope this shed some light for you.

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