ASSESSING HOLDING ABILITY IN FLUE-CURED TOBACCO CULTIVARS

Abstract Leaves of flue-cured tobacco develop from immature to unripe to mature to ripe to overripe over a several week period beginning at the base of the plant. Leaf value improves through the ripe stage, then begins to decline as the leaves overripen. To harvest each leaf at its highest quality, plants are harvested several times during the season beginning with the lower leaves. Some leaves may be harvested after their peak quality. Growers prefer cultivars that retain their leaf value for as long as possible after optimum harvest time. The cultivar K326, which was released in the early 1980s, is well known for maintaining leaf quality and value over an extended time period, a trait now called “holding ability”. Each year since 1992 the Official Variety Testing Program at North Carolina State University has collected data on the holding ability of 10 or more cultivars at one or more locations. Value per hectare was chosen as the criterion for measuring this trait. Data from K 326 (the control cultivar...