Tobacco growing in Germany

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Tobacco planting by Heinrich Schulte-Altenroxel in Münster-Uppenberg , approx. 1912

The tobacco cultivation in Germany has indeed boast a 400 year old tradition among German climatic conditions but it is a special culture in plant cultivation marginality. High demand for tobacco products, a shortage of foreign currency and import restrictions by the state, as well as high land and sufficient labor productivity for large farming families were the basis for the expansion of German tobacco production, which has hardly had any significance in Germany since the beginning of the 21st century. The description of the worldwide cultivation can be found under tobacco .

History of cultivation

Monument "In memory of the first tobacco cultivation ANNO 1670" in Großgründlach near Nuremberg
Monument "tobacco seamstress" in Lorsch, South Hesse

According to a document from the Palatinate , the first tobacco in Germany is said to have been grown in 1573 in the parish garden of Hatzenbühl ( Diocese of Speyer ). The clergy of that time were often seen as conveyors of botanical innovations and new medical applications. So initially the application of tobacco in medicine was of interest. Palatine Count Friedrich IV ordered cultivation attempts in the Electoral Palatinate as early as 1598 . In 1615 the first tobacco growing for commercial purposes was started in Holland . "Holländischer Knaster" smoked in the "Delft clay pipe" and Dutch snuff became fashionable. Dutch tobacco farmers settled in the Mannheim area and grew the varieties “Amersforter”, “Geudertheimer” and “Goundie”. Tobacco smoking was widespread due to the mercenary armies wandering around Germany in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The Huguenots , who were accepted into the margraviate of Baden-Durlach and the diocese of Speyer, brought tobacco seeds and cultivation experience with them from France and thus created the prerequisites for the further spread of cultivation in Germany. The type of tobacco they brought with them was named "Friedrichstaler" after their new home . Manorial houses in East Germany recruited Huguenots and Palatine tobacco farmers with generous privileges. This is how important cultivation areas arose in Pomerania and the Uckermark . In 1708 the geographer Johann Gottfried Gregorii alias Melissantes mentioned the excellent tobacco from Wasungen in Thuringia.

There was great expansion by the end of the 19th century; Around 200,000 farms then grew tobacco on over 30,000 hectares. (Baden 10,000 ha, Prussia 7,000 ha, Bavaria including the Palatinate 7,000 ha, remaining German states 6,000 ha). From the beginning of the 20th century, tobacco became one of the most important sources of income for small-scale agriculture, especially in Baden and the southern Palatinate . Tobacco offered many farming families and many day laborers work and income after the introduction of compulsory admixture of domestic tobacco in cigars and cigarettes in Germany in 1920 . To improve the German tobacco quality, a tobacco research institute was founded in Forchheim in 1927 with Paul Koenig as its first director.

The European tobacco blue mold - pandemic in 1960 caused by careless handling of a scientist with the so-called tobacco downy mildew -causing fungus peronospora tabacina was caused at the Federal Institute for Tobacco Research in Forchheim, put the survival of many farms in question. The structural change in agriculture, which had already begun at that time, was intensified in the tobacco-growing areas by this loss of income. Since the turn of the millennium, tobacco cultivation has only played an economically significant role in a few regions (southern Palatinate, northern Baden, Uckermark).

With 4,600 hectares of tobacco grown in Germany (2009), the area under cultivation has hardly changed for years. The largest growing area is in Baden-Württemberg (39%), followed by Rhineland-Palatinate (26%), Bavaria (16%) and Brandenburg (7%). All other countries are of little importance with a combined 12% acreage share. the cultivation of air-dried tobacco varieties in Germany has been discontinued since the end of subsidies by the EU. The remaining virgin varieties with artificial drying are grown on approx. 2000 hectares (2019).

With 4,000 working hours per hectare, the amount of work (end of the 19th century) was very high, but the income per unit area was 10 ... 20 times higher than with cereal cultivation. Appropriate mechanization has meanwhile reduced the amount of manual labor, which is still around 400 h / ha for the remaining virgin varieties (2018).

Cultivation

Tobacco plant variety Burley Source: M. Raupp Diploma thesis 1962

The planting of tobacco in the field carried out in Germany in early May, when the danger no longer exists from late frosts. The hand-planting that used to be common has disappeared; Since the 1960s, planting has been done with tractor-pulled planters . Up until 1959, tobacco care in the field was primarily limited to mechanical weed control with a hand hoe, hoe and ridging plow.

After the harvest, the stinging shoots that develop in the leaf axils sprout again. The new leaves are called night tobacco. In the last century, the night tobacco was prepared by the growers for "self-consumption" and the leafless "tobacco stem" was dried and used as heating material.

The harvested tobacco leaves are dried for several weeks. The water content of the leaves drops from 90% directly after harvest to a content of around 15%, the leaves turn brown and chemical degradation processes begin. In Germany, drying in tobacco sheds was the preferred method until 2010 . Such tobacco sheds, mostly large wooden buildings, are typical of the (southern German) tobacco growing areas. The virgin varieties currently (2020) cultivated are exclusively artificially dried. The supply of seeds and specialist advice for the growers were taken over by organizations that are close to the Federal Association of German Tobacco Growers.

marketing

Frozen tobacco plants in an unharvested field near Heidelberg

The dark tobacco varieties Geudertheimer and Friedrichstaler were used in cigar manufacture . The light varieties Burley and Virgin are still sold today as cigarette tobacco . Until the middle of the 20th century, sales were secured by a compulsory admixture of German tobacco. Cigarettes containing German tobacco can still be found in Roth-Handel cigarettes today . The growers are part of the Federal Association of German Tobacco Growers, the tobacco processors are part of the Association of the German Smoking Tobacco Industry. Since the beginning of the 21st century, several studies are on the way to use the special knowledge of tobacco cultivation for other crops or to show the growers appropriate cultivation alternatives.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ MELISSANTES: GEOGRAPHIA NOVISSIMA ..., part 1, Frankfurt, Leipzig and [Erfurt] 1708, p. 1181
  2. ^ Lumpen am Stock , Spiegel online , August 3, 1960, accessed May 5, 2020
  3. ↑ Tobacco cultivation in Baden-Württemberg 2003 ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.3 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.statistik-bw.de
  4. ↑ Tobacco growing in the Uckermark 1993/94, doi : 10.3203 / IWF / C-1977
  5. ↑ tobacco growing statistic of Proplanta for Germany 2009
  6. ^ Federal Association of German Tobacco Growers
  7. ↑ NiCoTa service company for tobacco growers
  8. ↑ Tobacco growing advisory service
  9. ^ Information on the Federal Association of German Tobacco Growers
  10. ↑ Information on the Association of the German Smoking Tobacco Industry
  11. ↑ Sweet farewell to the scratchy smoke; Job alternatives for tobacco farmers, information from the University of Hohenheim 2008