By: Hollie Wrather & Ella Settle

1. It starts with seeds. Seeds are sprinkled onto the surface of a sterile seed starting mix and watered in.

2. Tiny seedlings emerge in about 10 days.

3. This is actually about where the plants should be in early June.

4. Again, about a month behind the optimum stage.

5.Flower heads are bagged for seed production.  They are covered before the flowers open in order to maintain purity of the variety.

6.Early September, the plants are beginning to ripen.

· Remove any weeds from the tobacco's planting area, because weeds will absorb the nutrients the tobacco plants need. If using gardening tools,

be careful not to dig too deeply and damage the tobacco plant's roots.

· Supply the tobacco plants with one to two inches of water each week. Do not water after a rainstorm. Tobacco plants can take 10 to 12 weeks to

reach full maturity after they are transplanted outside.

·Add more fertilizer to the plants if you see the leaves turning yellow. Use the same fertilizer you used when planting in the seed trays; follow product

instructions for dilution and amount to use.

Cut, wilted, and ready to stick.  That is, using a tobacco spear on the end of a "tobacco stick" that has been driven into the ground, the stalks are pierced and threaded onto the stick.  The sticks are then gathered and moved to the tobacco barns.

For small scale, personal use growing, tying twine onto the stalk works just fine.  Here is a stick ready for the barn. Other areas out of inclement weather and direct sunlight will work fine as well. 

Air curing in the barn.  The warm days and cool nights of early fall are perfect conditions for curing tobacco leaf.

At one week, yellow colors begin to change to varying shades of brown.

At eight weeks the air curing process is nearly complete.

•Hi-Capacity Tobacco Baler

•Stalk Cutter•Knives

•Tractor

•Setter

•Barns

•Spikes • Tobacc

o Stic

ks

• Disk

• Sprayer

• Wagons

•It is an important component of

the agriculture industry in many

countries and creates more

employment per hectare (unit of

space) of cultivated land than any

other crop in the world.

•The tobacco industry generally occupies an important role within a country’s social and economic context.

•The distribution of tobacco products is a significant source of economic activity.

2007 2008 2009 2010

Price per pound $1.77$1.85

•Since 1997, tobacco prices have remained under $2 per pound.

$1.75$1.39

•The crop is grown in typically any where that has land that you can grow other crops such as wheat, cotton, soybeans, corn.

•The crop does need rain at least 3-5 inches every 2 weeks. Also the crop needs a dry climate to absorb the rain and grow.

•The crop is used to grow and sell for money, most of the money is used to buy other farm equipment or to buy other seeds to plant.

• In certain neurologic and psychiatric conditions,

nicotine can have useful therapeutic effects,

reported scientists at the inaugural conference of

the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.

The crop is used for……

• Cigarettes

•Dip

•Chewing tobacco

•Cigars

•Blunts

•Kreteks

And other smoke products

1612

The settlers of the first American colony in Jamestown, Virginia grew tobacco as a cash crop.

 .

Columbus Discovers Tobacco

1492

Brosch experiments with tobacco carcinogenisis on guinea pigs

1900

President Clinton announced FDA plans to regulate tobacco, especially sales and advertising aimed at minors.

1995

•Tobacco is currently the world’s most important non-food crop and contributes substantially to

the economy of more than 150 countries.•Tobacco is native to the Americas.

•Indigenous peoples smoked and

otherwise used tobacco leaves for

ceremonial and medicinal purposes.

•It has been grown commercially in the

United States as far back as 1612 when

the European colonist John Rolf first

planted seeds in Virginia for export to

England.

www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL30947.pdf

http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/specialty_crops/tobacco_profile.cfm

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/rowcrops/tobacco/crop_economics/

http://healthliteracy.worlded.org/docs/tobacco/Unit1/2history_of.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/10339/ttl/