A Kentucky Tradition
Not only is tobacco important to the state as a whole, but it also has a major role at the University of Kentucky. There is a building in the College of Agriculture, named the Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center, which is completely devoted to the research of tobacco. Also, the Main Chance research farm at UK grows tobacco and performs tests and experiments to find more efficient ways to grow tobacco. The Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering department does research on tobacco as well, mainly focusing on machinery used for planting and harvesting tobacco.
The Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center (KTRDC) conducts and supports unique research programs that examine opportunities for tobacco (“Kentucky Tobacco,” 2002). The KTRDC building is approximately 66,000 square feet of office space and laboratory. They also use the greenhouses at the College of Ag for growing the plants they are researching. At the center the staff researches projects that explore the development of tobacco as pharmaceuticals and the development of new technologies for Kentucky agriculture. Dr. George Wagner is currently researching the surface of the tobacco leaf which has potential use as pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Another main project that is being researched is the development of a new tobacco type. The new tobacco type will be more economical to produce and will be more resistant to diseases such as blue mold and black shank.
The Main Chance research farm grows 10-15 acres of tobacco that is all used for research. I actually work at the research farm on the farm crew and get to work around the research tobacco. I don’t help out with the research but the farm crew’s job is to plant, maintain, and harvest the tobacco. We have to tag each stick and sometimes each stalk of tobacco for the researchers. The tags include what variety of tobacco it is, when it was harvested and what experiment is being performed on it. Most of the tobacco at the farm is used to research how weather conditions affect the outcome of the crop. One of the experiments conducted at the farm is how tobacco can recover after being hit by hail. The researchers actually have a hail machine which crushes up ice and sprays it over the tobacco to simulate a hailstorm. Another experiment they perform is that they will infect the tobacco with diseases and then put certain chemicals on the tobacco to see if they can cure the disease.
The Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering department also researches tobacco. They focus more on equipment and facilities used for growing tobacco and how to improve them and develop new ideas to help make growing tobacco easier. Tobacco is harvested by being speared onto a stick (6 stalks per stick) and then hung up in a barn to be dried out. After it has been completely dried out by hanging for 1-2 months it is then taken out of barn and the leaves are stripped off the stalk by hand and put into bales. The BAE department designed pallet rack structures for curing tobacco. These structures allow you to hang tobacco on them and cover it with plastic rather than hanging the tobacco in a barn to cure out. The department has also helped design the tobacco cutting machine. This machine cuts the tobacco and spears it onto a stick. It still has a lot of kinks in the design and is not cost efficient for many farmers to own yet. When hanging tobacco in a barn to cure out it has to be a barn specifically built for hanging tobacco. Tobacco barns have tiers in them where you can climb in the barn and hang the barn full of tobacco from top to bottom. Well the BAE department developed an idea where you can hang tobacco on tiers on wagons and then use a hydraulic machine to called a hoist to raise the tobacco up on a tier and hang it in the top of a barn without having to do any climbing. This idea also requires a barn that is built specifically for this idea. On my family farm we have a barn like this and a hoist to hang the tobacco. This system saves a lot of labor and is safer because the farmer doesn’t have to climb in the barn, which has led to many injuries over the years.
The Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center
Importance at the University of Kentucky
