White Burley Tobacco - Experiments and Cultural Directions

This tobacco work was started late in the spring of 1913 and consisted of three fertilizer very little Avork had everbeen done with tobacco by the West A'irginia Experiment Station.. By

West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment

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Cook, I S and Scherffius, C H., "White Burley Tobacco : Experiments and Cultural Directions" (1916) West Virginia Agricultural and

Forestry Experiment Station Bulletins 152.

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Agricultural experiment Station

^lORGAXTOWX, AV VA.

WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO

EXPERIMENTS AND CULTURAL DIRECTIONS

BY

I S. Cook and C H. Scherffius

U S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

The Bulletins and Reports of this Station will be mailed free to any citizen

of West Virginia upon written application Address Director of Agricultural

THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

Educational Institutions

THE STATE BOARD OF CONTROL

JAMES S. LAKIN, President '.

Charleston, W Va

J. M WILLIAMSON - Charleston, W Va.The State Board of Control has the direction of the financial and

business affairs of the state educational institutions.

THE STATE BOARD OF REGENTS

M P. SHAWKEY, President Charleston, W Va

State Superintendent of Schools

GEORGE S. LAIDLEY Charleston, W. Va

ARLEN G. SWIGER Sistersville, W. Va

EARL W OGLEBAY Wheeling. W. Va

The State Board of Regents has charge of all matters of a purely

scholastic nature concerning the state educational institutions.

FRANK BUTLER TROTTER, LL.D President

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION STAFF

FRANK B. KUNST, A.B Assistant Chemist

ROBERT SALTER, B.S.Agr Assistant Soil ChemistANTHONY BERG, B.S Assistant Plant Pathologist

L F. SUTTON, B.S., B.S.Agr Assistant Horticulturist

HENRY DORSEY, B.S Agr Assistant Agronomist

E L. ANDREWS, B.S .\gr Assistant in Poultry Husbandry

*B A. TUCKWILLER, B.S Agr Assistant in Animal Husbandry

*In co-operation with U S Department of Agriculture,

White Burley Tobacco

By I S. COOK and C H. SCHERFFIUS.

West Mrginia Legislature to the Experiment Station, for the

purpose of conducting experiments with tobacco Along

United States Department of Agriculture furnished

addi-tional funds for co-operative tobacco work and the junior

of tobacco investigations This tobacco work was started

late in the spring of 1913 and consisted of three fertilizer

very little Avork had everbeen done with tobacco by the West

A'irginia Experiment Station

AA'hile the tobacco-producing area of West Virginia islimited, yet the total value of the crop amounts to more than

a half-million dollars The follovv'ing figures give the amount

of tobacco that passed through the Huntington tobacco house for the yearly periods each beginning in July and con-

1912 to 1913 5,163,676 $613,862.81 $11.88

1913 to 1914 6.023,505 712,978.91 11.87

1915 to 1916 4,195,690 564,982.27 13.46

These figures represent the amount of tobacco that was

raised in this state and marketed through the Huntingtontobacco warehouse The tobacco growers in counties of Ohioand Kentucky adjoining the Huntington district also markettobacco in Huntington, amounting to about the same number

of pounds as that produced in this state, although the value

of it is less since the quality is not so good as the raised in AVest Virginia Their average price per hundred pounds is less than that received by West A'''irginia growers

tobacco-4 W VA AGR'L EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 152The type of tobacco grown is the White Burley which ischiefly used in the manufacture of chewing tobacco, althoughsome of the better grades are largely used for pipe and ciga-rette purposes and to a limited extent for the manufacture

of cigars

SELECTION OF SOIL AND ROTATIONS.

All tobacco growers prefer a virgin soil, and one on which white oak, walnut, maple, and hickory grow naturally

seems to produce tobacco of fine quality While a virgin

soil cannot usually be had, a soil that is fertile, containing

an abundance of organic matter, making it loose and mellow,

will produce fine tobacco Good bluegrass sod land produces

in the tobacco sections of this state very little bluegrass sod

land is ever plowed A clover sod will furnish the next best

few farmers are rotating their crops and growing clover by

consequently their meadows are composed almost entirely of

timothy and orchard grass When a tobacco crop follows this

after clover or some other leguminous crop, although the

deter-mine whether he wants a high yield or the best quality of

tobacco

The methods of cropping the land in the tobacco tions of this state are so haphazard that farmers do not know

sec-from one year to the next on what fields they are going to

fixed rotation in tobacco growing than in many other kinds of

results in the tobacco growing districts

No 1 Corn & To- Soybeans Wheat Clover and Timothy

June, 1916] WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO 5

This five-year rotation will require five small areas of

ground The corn and tobacco crops are intended to occupy

the same area of land as is occupied by any one of the other

crops Farmers who grow tobacco will also grow corn, andtobacco following corn or corn following tobacco is nota good

practice Since a smaller acreage of tobacco is usually grownthan that of hay or wheat it would be a better practice to

one-half of the area to each crop The advantages of this rotation

fer-tility of the soil by growinga cover crop and two leguminous

such a rotation By growing soybeans for hay following thecorn and tobacco crops there is sufficient time for getting a

good growth of rye before turning under to sow soybeans

If not enough land is available for dividing it into five tracts, it will be necessary to practice a three or four year

not plowing the clover and timothy sod after the first hay

plowing for tobacco and corn, one-half of the field beingdevoted to corn and the other half to tobacco as in the five-

year rotation While this rotation does not provide a greenmanuring crop nor a second nitrogen-gathering crop as in the

first rotation, it is far better than no definite rotation Thefertility of the soil can be maintained or increased by making

liberal use of high grade fertilizers and by utilizing all of the

farm manure produced on the place

Tobacco growers must avoid growing corn after tobacco

or tobacco after cornas these two cultivated crops are entirely

too hard on the land when following each other, and it will

6 W VA AGR'L EXPERIMEXT STATION [Bulletin 152

soil of its fertility as rapidly as tobacco if no green manuring

or leguminous crops are in the rotation in which they are

grown Tobacco, being a crop capable of bringing in largecash returns, so tempts farmers to grow it often on the same

The best tobacco soils are the Huntington silt loam,

Holston silty clay loam, Holston silt loam, and Tyler silt

The Holston silty clay loam lies along the Guyandotte ValleyRailroad and is good corn and tobacco soil. While it does

not extend over as large an area as the Holston silt loam, the

yield and quality of thetobacco grown on it are usually better

June, 1916] WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO

VARIETIES.

sec-tions is that known as Lockwood's Btirley There is no

re-sults in the past Owing perhaps to the lack of attention

given to the selection of seed from the better plants, this

to-bacco as it formerh' did. In the spring of 1913 a variety test

was conducted at Milton which included eight A^arieties,seven of which were secured from the Kentucky State Ex-periment Station and the other being Lockwood's Burley

The plots were 1-30 of an acre in size and Lockwood'sBurley was grown on every third plot. The following table

YieldperAcre

Selection of White Twist Bud 71.0 2130

which was very late for growing good plants This was due

not completed until quite late in the spring The plants were

matured properly The result was that considerable damage was done to the tobacco in the barn by an early freeze in the

fall. Two or three of the varieties tested gave promise of

proving superior to Lockwood's Burley in quality as well

as in yield

CULTURAL DIRECTIONS.

There is no definite time for sowing tobacco seed any

spring, and it is undecided which is the better time In fact,winter sowing will suit one farmer while spring sowing will

farmers are usually very busy and are more likely to neglect

8 W AGR'L EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 152ground is wet and more burning is required, so the gain is

about equal to the loss. Good plants may be had, though,

either from winteror springsowing, but springsowing should

not be later than the last of March.

having good drainage and being well exposed to the sun It

is best to find some place in the woods where the soil is loose

and friable. This soil usually has enough decayed vegetable

matter and is also handy to plenty of wood, shrubbery, brush,

etc. which ma}' be used forburning

in-sects, and weed and grass seeds that may be in the soil. A good method is to lay small poles or skids over the area to beburned, at intervals of from three to four feet, and then to

pile brush and dry wood on one end of the skids After

setting fire to the brush the burning material is pulled

suffi-ciently heated and sterilized to a depth of two or three inches

It will be necessary to pile more brush on from time to time

debris, the soil is thoroughly spaded to a depth of four or five

inches Before seeding, a fertilizer consisting of 5 pounds of

sowingshould be a level teaspoonful of seed to 100 square feet

of bed If sown too thick, the plants will be tall and ing, while if sown too thin they will be too short for setting

be covered with canvas to protect it from cold winds Thecanvas should be allowed to remain till a week or ten days

plants

PREPARATION OF SOIL.

The ground intended for tobacco should be plowed in

the fall, if there is no danger of washing, especially if it is

If it is newly cleared land or land free from dry vegetation, it

may be plowed early in the spring and the results obtained

will be satisfactory

Sufficient time after plowing is needed to get the ground

in a fine tilth, so as to give the best possible conditions forstarting the plants to growing rapidly The principal reason

June, 1916] WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO

time to rot, and also to kill insects that might prove injurious

to the young tobacco plants Early in the spring the land

should be pulverized thoroughly by cultivating with a disk

harrow and dragging with a peg tooth harrow Sometimes

it is necessary that the ground be re-broken before harrowing

however, will be discussed under the subject of transplanting

A Good Type of Air Curing Tobacco Barn

FERTILIZERS.

The fertilizer requirements of different soils for growing good tobacco var}^ considerably, due to the way the soil has

l)een handled in previous years The amount of plant food

These figures show that the tobacco plant uses a

W. VA AGR'L EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 152

able to apply a fertilizer relatively high in this plant food

con-stituent This is due to the factthat phosphorus in West

Vir-ginia soils is in combination with elements which form

applies also to potassium While West Virginia soils contain

their requirements This deficiency of available potash is

probably due to the lack of decaying vegetable matter and

lime in the soil. The system of farming followed in the

to-bacco districts did not provide for a leguminous or greenmanuring crop and consequently the soils have been robbed

of their nitrogento such an extent that itwill notbe profitable

to farm them until organic matter and nitrogen are restored

The fertilizer work that has been carried on for the last

farmers for a period of years so that a definite rotation could

results of two years' test at Hurricane No work was done

at Hurricane durine 1915

Fertilizing Materials

Acid Phosphate Per Acre

Nitrate of

Soda Per Acre

Sulphate of

Potash Per Acre

Yields in Lbs.

Per Acre

Nitrate of Soda, Acid

Phos-and Sulphate of Potash

The soil on which this fertilizer test was conducted is

known as the Tyler silt loam which is rather a heavy soil,

June, 1916] WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO 11

phos phate and sulphate of potash a considerable increase in the

re-sults of all fertilizing materials applied Not many tobaccofarmers keep any more livestock on their farms than is neces-sary to farm their land and furnish milk for the home The most common fertilizer used is one analyzing- one percent am-monia, eight percent phosphoric acid and four percent potash,

slight increase in yield, due perhaps to the low percentage of

The results of the fertilizer test at Milton are shown in

one-half of all the plots at the rate of2000 pounds per acre

Fertilizing Materials

Acid Phosphate Per Acre

Nitrate of

Soda Per Acre

Sulphate of

Potash Per Acre

Manure Tons Per Acre

Yields in Lbs.

Per Acre

Acid Phosphate,

Ni-trate of Soda and

Sulphate of Potash

Manure

Acid Phosphate,

Ni-trate of Soda and

100 175

1570

1370

limed halves of the plots receiving fertilizers produced 126

pounds per acre more than the halves receiving no lime

1914, one acre ofland was rented for the purpose of

mixed fertilizer was applied at the rate of 700 pounds per acre

and the necessary cultivations given to the tobacco The

fertilizing materials applied were 300 pounds of acid

sul-phate of potash

Valley in both Cabell and Lincoln counties, on the Holstonsilty clay loam soil which is recognized by all tobacco grow-

ers as being perhaps the best soil type for raising Burley

12 W. VA AGR'L EXPERIMENT STATION [Bulletin 152The first two years' test, indicating the fertilizing ma-terials applied and the results obtained, is shown in the fol-lowing table

Fertilizing Materials

Acid Phosphate Per Acre

Nitrate of

Soda Per Acre

Sulphaie of

Potash Per Acre

Yields in Lbs.

Per Acre

No fertilizer

Acid Phosphate, Nitrate of

Local fertilizer, 82-8-4, 400 lbs.

per acre

Acid Phosphate, Nitrate of

100

80 100

June, 1916] WHITE BURLEY TOBACCO 13Nitrogen seems to be the controlling element since the

yield of tobacco on this type of soil was either high or low,

depending upon the amount of nitrogen that was applied Afertilizer with a relatively high percent of phosphorus, as

compared with potassium, will no doubt pay better on this

especially would this conclusion be reached if grain were grown in rotation with tobacco on this soil type

type was changed and the different fertilizing materials were

times with every fifth one a check plot.

Fertilizing Materials

Acid Phosphate Per Acre

Nitrate of

Soda Per Acre

Sulphate of

Potash Per Acre

Yields in Lbs.

Per Acre

500 500

Acid Phosphate, Nitrate of

Acid Phosphate, Dried Blood

and Sulphate of Potash

Acid Phosphate, Nitrate of

Soda, Sulphate of Potash

Nitrate of Soda and Sulphate

*Dried blood.

fLlme, 2000 lbs per acre.

purpose of determining the approximate cost of growingtobacco when a high grade fertilizer was applied at the rate

of 700 pounds per acre Ground limestone was applied at the

rate of one ton per acre and a fertilizer mixture of 200 pounds sodium nitrate, 300 pounds acid phosphate and 200 poundspotassium sulphate was used on the acre of land It wouldperhaps have been better if tankage or dried blood had beenused as the carrier of nitrogen in order to produce a leaf of

finer texture