TOBACCO

Tobacco, widely grown non-food crop of the world. It is consumed in form of Cigars, bidis, cigarettes, cheroots, pipe and hookah. India is the world\\\'s third largest producer of tobacco next to china and USA also India exported tobacco to more than 80 countries. Tobacco sector provide various jobs to rural india in agriculture sector as well as in manufacturing and distributions of tobacco products. It is cultivated all over India but Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, west Bengal and Uttar Pradesh are major tobacco growing states.
 

It can be grown on all types of soils. As a rainfed crop, it grows best on alluvial soils, loamy soils and black clayey soils. Cigar and cheroot tobaccos cultivated on gray to red soils varying from light gravelly to sandy loams soils. Chewing tobacco grown on all types of soils. Avoid water logged soils for its cultivation. For good quality cigar, mixed sand with soils.  Choose soils having large quantities of nitrogen, potassium, calcium and magnesium.

Different types of tobacco grown in India.

Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV),

Bidi, Hookah and Chewing,

Cigar filler, Cigar Wrapper

Cheroot, Burley,

Oriental, HDBRG,  Lanka etc., are the different types of tobacco grown in the country.

Flue-Cured:- Harrison special, Chatham, Delcrest, Virginia gold, Kanakaprabha, Whit gold, Dhanadayi

Bidi: -Keliu-49, Keliu-20, Surati-20, Anand-2, Anand-3, Anand-23, Anand-119, Kunkumathiri

Natu: -D.G.3, D.G.4, D.R.1

Cigar filler: -OL-10, VV-2, KV-1, I-462

Cherrot: - OK-1, 1-737

Chewing: -I-64, PV-7, WR-2, I-115, VTK-1, VD-1, S-1, P-4, S-57, Anand-145

Hookah and chewing: -N.P.70, N.P.35, D.P.401, D.D.413, N.P.18, N.P.20

Wrapper: -Dixie shade

Burley: -Ky-16, Ky-58

Depending upon soil type prepared land by ploughing for six to ten times with help of mould board plough and country plough. After ploughing carry out harrowing to break clods and make soil level. Remove weeds and keep field weed free. Depending upon soil type, apply well decomposed cowdung or Farmyard Manure and mixed well in soil.

Time of sowing
It depends upon region and variety to be sown. Optimum time of sowing nurseries and transplanting varies for different varieties (even in the same place). Optimum time for nursery raising is from April to May month and it can be transplanted upto October month.

Spacing
It varies with variety and region.
For FCV tobacco, use spacing of 70 x 50cm or 100 x 60cm. 
For Bidi Tobacco, use spacing of 90 x 60cm, 100 x 75cm or 75 x 50cm
For Burley, Natu and Lanka tobacco, use spacing of 90 x 45cm or 90 x 90cm or 60 x 60cm
For Cigar and cheroot, use spacing of 70 x 50cm or 60 x 45cm respectively
For hookah, use spacing of 90 x 90cm or 60 x 45cm.

Method of sowing
Transplantation of seedling in main field. Transplanting is done on ridge or on flat beds.

As tobacco seeds are small and egg-shaped so seeds are unsuitable for sowing directly in the field. Therefore they are sown first in nursery then seedlings are transplanted in the main field.
For nursery raising select sandy or sandy loam soils. Avoid heavy black soils as these soils are having poor drainage capacity and causes damping off disease in nursery.
During bright sunny hours also in heavy rainfall, to protect nursery from damage, use mulches and covers.
Depending upon requirment do top dressing of Nitrogen.
When seedlings are become 6-8weeks old, they are ready for transplantion.
Stop irrigation to seedlings a week before removing them from nursery in order to harden them.
 

Seed Rate
For all types of tobacco, seed rate of 1.2 to 2kg per acre is optimum.

Fertilizer Requirement (kg/acre)

Nutrient Requirement (kg/acre)

Fertilizer dose is different in different tobacco growing areas. At time of land preparation apply general dose of 10 tonnes of farmyard manure or well decomposed cowdung or filter press cake per acre. Also apply 40kg Phosphorus in form of Single Super Phosphate@250kg/acre as a basal dressing. Apply 40kg of Nitrogen (Urea@90kg/acre) as top-dressing in installments per acre.

In nursery use hand weeding to keep check on weeds.  In main field, keep field weed free for initial 60 days after transplantation. In main field, as rows are placed at wider distance inter-row cultivation is feasible.  Take one or two cultivations followed by manual weeding. It gives adequate control on weeds.
Tobacco crop is sensitive to post herbicides applications. So apply herbicides like Pronamide, Fluchloralin, Isopropalin, Isoxaben before planting the seedlings in the main field.

Tobacco on black soils is not normally irrigated, but in adverse conditions, one irrigation for 40 day old plants is recommended. when it is cultivated on light soils it requires six irrigations. Provide good quality water for irrigation. It should not contain more than 50pm of chlorides, as it will leads to burning of the leaves and qualities of leaves get suffer.

• Pest and their control:
  

Stem borers: The caterpillars bore into stems and caused characteristics gall-like swellings on them.
As a preventive measures remove and destroyed affected stems during crop growth. Use healthy seedling for transplantation purpose.
Take spray of Carbaryl 50%@60gm/10Ltr of water. if necessary spray 2-3 times with interval of 15days.

Aphids: They feed on sap, and they excrete out honeydew while feeding where the sooty mould (fungus) also develops. The quality of such leaves get deteriorated.
If infestation is observed, take spray of Acephate 75SP@6gm/Ltr of water or Methyl demeton 25EC@2ml/Ltr of water.

Tobacco leaf-eating caterpillar: The young caterpillars, feed gregariously on tender leaves and juicy stems.

If infestation is observed, at early stage do dusting of 10% Carbaryl@8-10kg/acre. In severe infestation take spray of Quinalphos 25EC@ 20ml/10Ltr of water.

When  normal green colour of leaves, changes to yellowish green or to light yellow, they are ready for harvesting. Harvesting time varies with region and variety grown. .
In AP, December-March is optimum time for the flue-cured Virginia where as July-September in Karnataka. Harvest bidi tobacco in January-February. Optimum time for cigar and cheroot tobaccos is 90-100 days after planting when leaves become brittle and yellowish green. Where as chewing tobacco is harvested 110-120 days after planting.
May-June is good time for harvesting of hookah tobacco (rustica).

For harvesting,  two methods are used, like priming and stalk cut method.
Priming: Generally lower leaves mature first followed by upper leaves. Do Harvesting and remove few leaves as and when they mature. For Cigarette and wrapper tobaccos harvesting priming method is used.
Stalk cut method: For harvesting of Cigar, cheroot, chewing, bidi and hookah tobaccos stalk cut method is used. In this method, plants are cut close to the ground with a sickle and generally left in the field overnight for wilting.  Carryout harvesting when maximum number of leaves gets mature.
On an average, for flue cured Virginia and natu tobacco gives yield of about 312kg and 395 kg/acre. For bidi tobacco, yield of 145-187kg/acre is obtained. For cigar, cherrot and chewing tobacco, gives yield of 520kg-666kg/acre.

Main objective of curing is to produce dried leaf. In curing process drying of leaves is obtained by controlling various factor like ventilation, temperature and humidity.
After curing process, leaves are graded by sorting leaves into uniform lots according to body, colour and degree of blemish or damage.