Frogeye leaf spot in tobacco is caused by a fungus known as Cercospora nicotianae and has started to cause quite a bit of trouble for tobacco producers in Harrison County. This fungus causes roughly circular spots that generally appear on the lower leaves first and move up the plant as the season progresses. These spots will eventually turn brown and fall out causing a loss in pounds and quality to the overall crop.

This disease has started to create even more concern among tobacco producers in Harrison County that are starting to raise the Connecticut Broadleaf Tobacco (cigar wrapper) since leaf quality is of extremely high importance when raising this type of tobacco. No holes in the leaf are essential to making a good Connecticut Broadleaf crop that will in turn produce a profit.

Quadris is a fungicide that has been a staple in production of tobacco over the past several years and has been able to control diseases such as frogeye and target spot fairly well. However, recently there have been resistant populations of the frogeye fungus found around the state and in several fields in Harrison County. This resistant population poses several problems for tobacco producers striving to produce a quality burley and cigar wrapper crop.

In talking with Dr. Bob Pearce, UK Extension Tobacco Specialist, we decided to do a trial on a farm with known resistant populations to Quadris utilizing some different fungicides including Quadris to see if there is a single or combination of products that could be utilized to help reduce the effects that frogeye is having on our tobacco crop in Harrison County. 

We have not yet evaluated the results from this trial but if a solution is found and there is a treatment that stands out in the research trial then we could potentially save producers several thousand dollars on their tobacco crop.