Unidentified bugs AFTER harvest

[Milwaukeeace]

Haven't seen a picture like mine here so thought I'd share.

I had ZERO insect problems while growing this first ever crop of mine. None at all! After picking my last good leaves I left my plants to their own devices to see how big they got. The Habano 2000s got to almost 8'!

Anyhow, over the course of a week or so I started to notice a lot of flies around and the leaves, especially around the flowers, with a lot of very small dark colored dust like debris all over them. Along with this was a lot of small white colored dust like debris. The dark stuff is a small bug of some kind for sure... not sure about the white stuff...

Any suggestions?

 

[deluxestogie]

The blossom head photos clearly show a gazillion aphids. Also on the underside of the leaf bases. It's fairly common for small flies and gnats to land on upper tobacco leaf, and be killed by the high nicotine.

I'm a little confused. Are these photos of leaf that you will not be harvesting?

Bob

 

[Milwaukeeace]

The blossom head photos clearly show a gazillion aphids. Also on the underside of the leaf bases. It's fairly common for small flies and gnats to land on upper tobacco leaf, and be killed by the high nicotine.

I'm a little confused. Are these photos of leaf that you will not be harvesting?

Bob

Thanks for the info... not a one of the white things was moving though. The dark things were a moving bug of some type but I don't know what. My camera couldn't quite get a close shot that was focused.

Yes, I harvested all the good leaves. What you are seeing in the pics is all the suckered resulting from harvesting and pulling flower heads off. I just let them run their course to see what would happen but upon finding this I infestation I blew a torch over everything ("cleansed with fire" as I say) and chopped them all down. The "house flies" you see weren't dying though, just flying around and bothering over the flowers and whatever was on the leaves.

Again, it just seemed strange that I only got an infestation after letting the plants flower. I took no precautions whatsoever to ward off bugs while the plants grew and didn't have so much as a spider or an earwig on them. Even the squirrels stayed out of my yard this year.

 

[deluxestogie]

I also have seen almost no insect activity in my tobacco this year, except for crickets. That's not normal.

 

[Knucklehead]

If you were planning to harvest the leaves, you could just wash them off with water while they are still green, either in the patch prior to harvest or immediately after harvesting. Washing cured brown leaves can remove some nicotine and flavor.

 

[Knucklehead]

Some of the white stuff is honeydew, aphid excrement.

 

[Milwaukeeace]

Some of the white stuff is honeydew, aphid excrement.

What a lovely name for it.
I had no idea

 

[SlamFire]

I'll trade you all the bird poop on mine for a little aphid excrement, lol... Pros and cons of having trees near by... And the aphids are on my plants as well - no hornworms or army worms this year, at all, which is odd. Also strange is that the Wooly Bear Caterpillars in my area eat tobacco, which is not normally part of their diet...