Re: A thought on earlier thread, Hard labour on the farm

Posted by MARK ROBKE on February 02, 2022 at 13:42:38 from (75.89.169.232):

In Reply to: A thought on earlier thread, Hard labour on the farm posted by Bruce from Can. on February 02, 2022 at 07:10:09:

Growing burley tobacco should be mentioned. In this part of Kentucky, it is still grown, although it's a lot less than it was just a few years ago. The plants are started in March in greenhouses on float trays. After they are about 6-8 they are 'mowed off' and each succeeding time they are mowed a little taller. Meanwhile the ground is plowed and later drug and then disced. Sometimes the cover crop wheat is baled off first as haylage. It is fertilized and ready for the plants to be set. A 2 row setter takes about 6 people: a driver, 4 on the setter, and usually someone following the setter hand planting 'misses'. The setter water tank has to be filled every so often, so there is a nurse tank and a wagon with plant trays that has to be moved near the row ends. After the tobacco takes off it is cultivated, usually with a 1 or 2 row cultivator, at least 3 times, and sometimes more. Usually it gets hoed by hand once or so. When it starts blooming it has to be hand topped and sprayed with sucker 'dope'. Then sticks have to be dropped end to end, every other row, ahead of cutting and housing. It is hand cut, each stalk individually, and 5-6 stalks are 'speared' onto the stick, which is picked up off the ground and jabbed into the dirt at 45* angle. A good fast cutter stays bent over most of the time, and can cut close to 100 sticks in an hour. After letting it wilt down for a day or 2, it is loaded up on wagons and taken to the barn and 'hung'-the stick with plants on it between 2 rails. Usually you have a guy in the top rail and 1 below hanging and shaking the plants out-in other words spreading them apart so they cure better. Someone hands off from the wagon, and another guy carries the stick over and hands it up. If you have enough crop, you might fill the last barn in time for the first barn to be taken down, plants pulled off the sticks, and stripped: hand pulling leaves off each stalk. Then it is baled and stored and then loaded and taken to the warehouse/sale facility. Stripping can last most of winter, and the tobacco can only be stripped when it is in 'case', usually on a rainy day, so the dry leaves don't shatter. Most of this is done by hand although there are machines that can do some of these jobs.
As you can guess, labor is very hard to get, with the majority being Mexican coming thru the H-2A program. Oh yeah, you also have to take a class to sign up for these workers. Here lately the past few years, cigar wrapper tobacco is being grown. It is much the same except it is sprayed weekly for bugs (so no holes in the leaves), and is cut one day and speared the next, because the leaves are very brittle. After that everything is similar. Very dirty work. Mark.

Replies:

• Re: A thought on earlier thread, Hard labour on the farm AZglide 16:08:15 02/02/22 (0)

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