Success StoryEducational Programming in Good Agricultural Practices for Tobacco Production in Pennsylvania



Educational Programming in Good Agricultural Practices for Tobacco Production in Pennsylvania

Author: William Bailey

Planning Unit: Plant and Soil Sciences

Major Program: Tobacco

Outcome: Initial Outcome

Although Pennsylvania ranks in the top 5 states in the U.S. in tobacco production, there is no formal support for tobacco growers from Penn State University.  In late winter and spring of 2022, I was asked to travel to Pennsylvania along with another tobacco specialist from Virginia Tech, to provide Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training as well as general tobacco production training for over 400 of Pennsylvania's tobacco growers.  Topics covered included general cigar wrapper tobacco production, disease management, and air curing best practices.  Tobacco growers in Pennsylvania were very receptive of this training and would like for these meetings to continue and occur annually.  There are several states in the U.S. that have some tobacco production but provide little or no assistance to tobacco growers through the land-grant university.  In the past I have done similar programming in Wisconsin and Missouri.






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