When is tobacco planted

Green houses should be installed in clean places, well drained and closed to water sources, preferably in new terrain.

Transplantation is a careful process, since the young plant is very vulnerable to climate variations, to diseases and parasites. The seedlings to be transplanted must be 3 to 6 inches high, about days after planted.

During harvesting, in order to achieve proper curing of the tobacco leaves it is important to harvest them at the proper time of ripeness, this of course, depends on the variety of tobacco. For example, for black tobacco it is better to harvest before the stage of physiological ripeness, unlike blond tobacco which is harvested at an advanced stage of ripeness so that there is a predominance of carbohydrates.

In order to obtain a good harvest, it is necessary to place the harvested leaves in a tobacco house to protect them from the environment and from losing moisture in an accelerated manner. Nor should they be piled up in warehouses for long periods of time, in order to prevent mishandling or premature cell death. They must be strong together in such a way that rings only hold two leaves at a time.

Curing: Once tobacco is harvested, the leaf must undergo a real transformation in order for it to become raw material for the industry. Once harvested, tobacco leaves must first be cured, later fermented and aged. Tabadom Holding, Inc. While widespread cultivation of tobacco leaf has generated many challenges— including health hazards for farmers, environmental degradation and child labor issues—the most pressing systemic public health challenge is how the industry often uses tobacco farming to undermine tobacco control, arguing that tobacco control destroys the livelihoods of smallholder tobacco farmers.

Recent research across major tobacco-growing countries demonstrates that farming tobacco is not prosperous for most smallholder farmers. Many farmers—including many with contracts with oligopolistic leaf-buying companies—pay too much for inputs e.

The opportunity costs of farming tobacco are high, with farmers missing out on human capital development and more lucrative economic opportunities. So why do tobacco farmers grow tobacco? Many farmers report an assured market, even if prices are consistently low. Others report difficulty obtaining credit for other economic activities.

For some, it is a way to generate cash in low-cash economies to pay for necessities like education and health care. Yet, the research demonstrates consistently that many tobacco farmers underestimate their costs and overestimate their returns.

Few governments have made such efforts. There is no panacea for this transition; some countries have tried small programs to introduce new crops—e.

Some farmers switch to and from tobacco, based on hopes for high leaf prices. The most successful larger-scale examples of change rely more on existing skills and experience. In Indonesia, former tobacco farmers are growing non-tobacco crops that they have always grown, and are making more money doing so.

Governments can help by investing in supply and value chains, finding new markets for these other products, and divesting from any participation in tobacco cultivation. They can also re-invest vigorously in education and skills development, both agricultural and non-agricultural. After two months, the seed has grown into a plant some cm high, strong enough to continue its growth in the field for the next two to three months, carefully tended to maximize yield and quality.

Tobacco is harvested either leaf by leaf, in the case of Virginia and oriental tobaccos, or by the whole plant, in the case of burley. The next stage, curing, plays a major role in defining the leaf's final quality and character.

Each tobacco type is cured differently: air-curing for burley, flue-curing for Virginia, and sun-curing for oriental. Leaves are next sorted by stalk position and quality, then packed in bales, which are evaluated by leaf buyers. Tobacco leaf completes its journey through final processing which, for burley and Virginia tobaccos, includes separation of leaf from stem and removal of sand and nontobacco materials.

The tobacco is dried, packed in cases, and shipped to our manufacturing centers around the world where it is blended and made into cigarettes. The growing process for tobacco has not changed much in the last years. Technology has been added, of course, to make production more efficient, but the different stages of the process remain more or less the same.

We source high-quality tobacco from leaf suppliers and farmers in over 30 countries. We require that our suppliers follow our Good Agricultural Practices GAP program, which cover the entire tobacco growing process: planning the crops, selecting the right site with appropriate soil type and fertility, and preparing the land to ensure the tobacco we buy has the very best foundations on which to grow.

In the first stage of the growing process, tobacco seeds are sown in specially-constructed seedbeds. Selecting the right tobacco seed variety is essential to achieving a good yield of the desired quality of tobacco leaf. The seeds are sown in seedbeds not too close together to give each seedling enough room to grow. Tobacco seeds are tiny — there are between 10, and 13, of them in a gram — and they germinate rapidly in five to ten days.

Under the ideal seedbed conditions, they will grow to a height of centimeters in about two months. They are then transplanted in the fields. After two to three months, the plants are ready for harvesting. It is important to harvest precisely when the leaves are mature or ripe and in prime condition for curing. Tobacco plants ripen from the bottom to the top. The farmers start harvesting Virginia tobacco by picking the early ripening leaves closest to the ground.

They then move up the plant, picking the stalk layers as they ripen. Only three to six leaves are removed from the plant at each harvesting stage. Burley tobacco is normally harvested in a different way: farmers cut the whole plant and remove the leaves from the stalk after curing. Oriental tobacco leaves are harvested by hand, one by one, off of the plant as they ripen.