Lexington, Kentucky
August 6, 2008
Since its inception, the tobacco
research and extension collaboration between the
University of Kentucky College
of Agriculture and the University
of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture has helped both
universities successfully further and improve their tobacco
research and extension efforts.
“It’s a win-win-win-win situation for the University of
Kentucky, University of Tennessee, the tobacco industry and
growers,” said Bob Miller, UK/UT tobacco breeding and genetics
researcher.
UK and UT combined efforts to meet the needs of both states in
1999 before the tobacco buyout. Miller was the first person
appointed to a joint UK/UT faculty position as a result of the
collaboration. This was so successful that Andy Bailey, UK
extension specialist for dark tobacco, was added a few years
later. On July 1, Paul Denton, extension specialist for burley
tobacco, became the third joint faculty member in the
collaboration. Part of his responsibilities include working with
UK Tobacco Extension Specialist Bob Pearce to meet burley
tobacco growers’ needs in the state.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Denton said. “There’s a lot of
regional interaction between Kentucky and Tennessee. I’ve worked
with the Kentucky tobacco specialists for the past five years as
the tobacco specialist for the University of Tennessee.”
A smaller number of tobacco farmers remain in the post-buyout
era, but those farmers are growing more acreage. Within this new
environment, the collaboration allows both universities to
maintain a high level of service to the growers and keep up with
industry changes.
“The collaboration has certainly helped us meet the needs of
more farmers,” said Tim Cross, UT dean of extension. “It allows
us to serve our geographical regions better. It also has enabled
our specialists to have a more defined area and allowed them to
focus on a specific set of crops.”
Tobacco was a natural area for the universities to build a
partnership, because the states are two of the largest
tobacco-producing states in the nation, and they have similar
climates and disease situations for tobacco. Miller, Bailey and
Denton are well-known and respected by industry professionals
and have a rich history of working with growers in both states.
“The problems with tobacco don’t stop at state lines,” said
Michael Barrett, chair of the UK Department of Plant and Soil
Sciences. “The collaboration has allowed us to deal with issues
in both states and created access to research facilities in both
states.”
The access to research facilities at experiment stations in both
states has helped the researchers expand their studies.
“From a professional research standpoint, it’s an ideal
situation,” Miller said.
Barrett said Miller’s research has produced the premiere tobacco
breeding program in the world. He has developed new tobacco
varieties that are widely grown in both states.
As the demand for dark tobacco has increased in recent years,
Bailey has made strides with double crop curing of dark tobacco,
helping save growers the cost of additional infrastructure to
meet industry demands.
“Dark tobacco has seen an 18 to 20 percent increase in acreage
since the buyout, which is the exact opposite of burley,” Bailey
said. “With the buyout, we lost growers but gained acreage, so
we have fewer barns that are curing more tobacco.”
Because of tobacco’s regionalization, the two states have been
able to combine extension efforts to consolidate duplicated
publications into an easy to understand tobacco production
guide.
“It really has made the process more efficient,” said Bob
Pearce, UK burley tobacco extension specialist. “The content has
improved, and I expect to see it continue to improve.”
Both states tobacco production guides are available at county
extension offices in both states. Kentucky’s guide is available
online at
http://www.ca.uky.edu/Ag/Tobacco and Tennessee’s guide can
be viewed at
http://tobaccoinfo.utk.edu.
By Katie Pratt |
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