Tobacco

• Native to America
• Cultivated with great skill by Indian for pipe,
cigars, smoking, snuff and chewing.
• At present tobacco is a cash crop of millions of
farmers in America.
Types and varieties of Tobacco
• Tobacco is classified into 26 official types by
US State Agriculture Department.
• Classification is complex, based on use,
method of curing, soil and climatic conditions.
1. Flue-Cured.
• Was formerly cured by artificial heat through
flues or pipes.
• Open flame oil burners are now generally
used.
• Tobacco is firstly exposed to moderate
temperature and high humidity to yellow the
leaf.
• The temperature is progressively increased and
humidity is decreased to fix the yellow color of
leaves and finely dried the leaf.
• This procedure produces bright leaf which is
used mostly in cigarettes, rarely for pipe and
chewing
• This type is grown on light soils from Virginia
southward to Florida.
• 2. Fire cured
• Fire contact with the tobacco.
• Heavy smoking results in dark colored
leaves with strong odor.
• Used in snuff, chewing plug, and export.
• Grown on heavy loam soils.
• It have broad leaves, dark green in color.
• Drooping leaves have heavy body, gummy to
touch.
• 3. Air cured
• Cured by natural means in large brans
constructed to permit free circulation of air.
• Some heat is applied, when humidity is
high.
• Used for cigarettes, smoking, chewing and
export
• Some types blended in other tobacco for
export. Leaves fine in texture
• Grows well on mineral nutrients and
organic matter
• 4 Cigar Filler
• Used to form the core of cigar
• Course in texture, heavy in body and
considerable aroma
• Grown on heavy soils.
• 5 Cigar binder
• Used to hold the core of cigar filler
• Leaves are thinner, fine and more elastic
than cigar filler
• 6 Cigar wrapper
• The tobacco must be fine in texture, free
from injury and attractive in color
• It needs exact soil, climate, cultural
practices.
• Botany and Genetics
• Genus = Nicotiana
• Family Nightshade includes also tomato,
potato, pepper and some ornamental and
medicinal plants some of which are
poisonous.
• Sixty species described by Goodspeed,
• Two cultivated species N tabacum and N.
rustica.
• No wild species is found growing wild.
• Haploid Ch No. 9 to 24.
• Both cultivated species have n= 24.
• N. sylvestris, toentosae, otophora (n=12).
• Perennial in nature, due to freezing weather it
is cultivated as annual.
• 4-6 feet height.
• A single plant of cigar may have a leaf surface
of 25 square feet.
• Topping and suckering is practiced to promote
growth of desirable leaves.
• Accumulate nicotine in the leaves which
alkaloid having the formula C10H14N2. It is
synthesized in roots but found in all parts
except mature seed.
• Flowering:
• Genetics: Germen hybridizer Koelreuter 1761-
66 made hybridization many years before
Mendel in tobacco.
• Interspecific cross: between N. tabacum
(n=24) and N. alata (n=9), N. langsdorffii
(n=9), N. longiflora (n=10), N. glauca, N.
sylvestris, N. tomentosa, and N. glutinosa
(n=12), N. suaveolens (n=16), N. rustica, N.
bigelovii, N. debneyi (n=24).
• Tabacum and rustica cross to increase nicotine
contents
• Polyploid nature exploited for cytogenetic
studies
• By using colchicine it became possible to
double the chromosome No and obtain fertile
amphiploids in tobacco.
• Autoploids have been also produced in many
species with thicker and broader leaves,
thicker stems, larger flowers and late maturing
plants.
• Tobacco Breeding Objectives
• Yield. Size and number of leaves
• Improved field and handling characterstics
• 1. Toughness: stand at rough handling
• 2. Strom resistance to prevent breakage in wet
weather when plants are turgid.
• 3. Scald resistance to reduce the wilting and
killing of leaf areas during hot days.
• 4. Uniformity in ripening
• 5. Stand up: types which are easier to harvest
and less damage from leaves while lying on
ground
• Fewer and small suckers or slow growing
sucker to reduce labor cost.
• Combing ability. Ability of line to transfer its
performance to progeny.
• Two types:
• General combining ability(gca):
• Average performance of line in a series of
crosses.
• It have positive correlation with narrow sense
heritability.
• gca evaluate the additive portion of the genetic
effects.
• Specific Combining Ability (sca):
• sca is the contribution of an inbred line to
hybrid performance in a cross with a specific
inbred line.
• Positive correlation with heterosis
• Evaluate non-additive gene action
• Recurrent Selection Principle:
• Designed to increase the frequency of desired
alleles for particular quantitatively inherited
character by repeated cycle of selection.
• Two types of selections:
• Phenotypic recurrent selection: is selection to
improve a plant quantitative character based on
visual observation or physical measurement of
characters
• Genotypic recurrent selection: is used to
improve a plant quantitative characters on
based on progeny performance as measured
by test crosses.
• Back Cross Method: