By Bruce Schreiner
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Kentucky tobacco farmers are waging a fight against a fast-spreading disease already being blamed for inflicting millions of dollars of damage to the state's signature burley crop.

Blue mold surfaced earlier than usual this year, and the contagious fungus that damages tobacco leaves has gained a foothold in some top-producing counties, crop experts said Wednesday.

In some parts of a state that is the nation's leading burley tobacco producer, the outbreak looms as one of the worst ever, said Gary Palmer, a University of Kentucky extension tobacco specialist.

For some growers, it could become more devastating than the outbreak in 1979, when Palmer said he saw "grown men almost crying because they had a beautiful crop one day, and a few days later it was in rags."

So far this year, blue mold has been found in 48 of Kentucky's 120 counties, Palmer said. Three-fourths of the state is under a blue mold watch or warning, he said. The mold is spread by spores through the air.

The disease has thrived amid the wet, humid conditions persistent for much of the tobacco growing season. One-third of the state's tobacco was rated in fair or poor condition this week by a crop-reporting service.

Statewide, the tobacco crop was rated 52 percent good, 22 percent fair, 11 percent excellent, 11 percent poor and 4 percent very poor, the Kentucky Agricultural Statistics Service said in its report this week.

Palmer inspected tobacco fields Tuesday in Adair County in southern Kentucky. In one patch, Palmer said, the lower half of plants were "essentially destroyed" by blue mold. A week earlier, that same field was shaping up as the farmer's best crop ever, Palmer said.

Meanwhile, tobacco growers in much of western and northern Kentucky have been spared from blue mold, Palmer said.

In Harrison County, one of the hard-hit areas, the outbreak already has taken a toll on yields, said ag extension agent Gary Carter.

The disease has cost some tobacco growers more than a third of their crops in the north-central Kentucky county, said farmer Brian Furnish.

He said the rains are a "double-edge sword" for producers. "You need the rain to grow the crop, but all that moisture causes the blue mold to get worse," he said.

Some of Furnish's more mature tobacco plants were ruined Tuesday by wind damage from a thunderstorm.

Soaking rains also ripened chances for the disease to spread. But farmers should get a reprieve the next several days, when it's expected to turn dry and hot, the National Weather Service said.