Agriculture Business Week

The fertile soil of the Cagayan Valley, nourished by the mighty Cagayan River, and coupled with the humid weather condition resulted in the production of quality burley tobacco that is now sought after by cigarette manufacturers worldwide.

According to the multinational leaf supplier Universal Leaf Philippines Inc. (ULPI), the leaf, which is globally known as Isabela burley, is now considered to be one of the best types of tobacco that is used to manufacture cigarettes.

“The demand for Isabela burley all over the world has been steadily rising over the years,” says ULPI president Winston Uy.

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Posted on May 21st, 2011 under Other Crops, Plant. Tags: Burley, Isabela, Tobacco. Comments: None

Tobacco leaves produced by San Juan, Ilocos Sur Armen are of good quality that even sold at high price, traders and cigarette manufacturing companies vie for these.

But this was not the case in the 1980s. Tobacco leaves in this town back then were inferior compared to the produce of other provinces, remembers Jose Taclas, tobacco production and regulation officer III of the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) based in the town.

The reason for it, he furthered, was that farmers here were doing the conventional method in planting tobacco, the town’s main source of revenue.

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Posted on March 25th, 2010 under Plant. Tags: Plants, Tobacco. Comments: None

Don’t look now, but a number of things are happening to improve the income of Virginia tobacco farmers not only in the Ilocos but also elsewhere. One is the dissemination of two new varieties that produce higher-priced flue0cured leaves, are higher yielding and are also more resistant to pests and diseases.

Another development is an innovation in the flue-curing barn that uses strong carton as siding in the upper portion instead of the more expensive materials.

A third technology is the use of the bio-organic fertilizer Durabloom in combination with special formulations of chemical fertilizers which results in bigger and thicker leaves.

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Posted on May 28th, 2009 under Other Crops. Tags: Durabloom, Tobacco. Comments: 1

Our second visit to the farm of Victor Valledor in Brgy. Labting, San Juan, Ilocos Sur confirmed our earlier observation on the effects of Durabloom bio-organic fertilizer on flue-cured tobacco.

Vic, an agriculture graduate of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU), is a contract grower of Trans Manila Inc. and his farm is just opposite the Barangay Demo Farm of the provincial government of Ilocos Sur.

In 1 hectare planted with flue-cured tobacco, Vic applied 20 bags Durabloom as basal fertilizer and side dressed 9,000 sq. m. with the full inorganic fertilizer recommendation consisting of the following: 4 bags 18-46-0, 4 bags 13-0-46, 3 bags 7-1423, 2 bags 0-0-50, and 1 bag 21-0-0 (ammonium sulfate). In 1,000 sq. m., however, he reduced the inorganic fertilizer by 20 percent.

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Posted on April 19th, 2009 under Plant. Tags: Durabloom, Tobacco. Comments: 1