How to lower the labor requirement of harvesting burley tobacco

(Tobacco Farmer Newsletter) Could burley growers replace the hatchet-like tobacco "knife" with a weedeater for cutting down their stalks?
"We have found that a weedeater with a blade is the best way to cut burley,” says Joseph French, superintendent of the Upper Piedmont Research Station at Reidsville, N.C. "You can cut burley [so] much faster with [one]." You also don’t have to stoop as you do with the conventional knife. Continued