Requirements for ripeness, chemical status and balance at harvest are more stringent for tobacco leaves than for any other crop. Especially for flue-cured tobacco the leaves must be picked at a more advanced stage of ripeness than for other types of tobacco. Optimum quality in cured leaf tobacco can only be guaranteed when the barns, tunnels or other structures used to cure crops are filled with uniformly grown and harvested fresh leaf. Ideally all picked leaf in the curing facility should be of the same chemical ripeness and have been picked from an equivalent position on the plant. It follows that reaping must be a highly organised procedure with reapers under strict instruction and close supervision on what type of leaf they should be picking.