Help identifying disease - red micro spots

[Cubana]

Hi all,
I've been struggling to identify various spots on my plants. I am certain my plants have some kind of disease (amongst other deficiencies) as can be seen in the attached images. I have two small separated plots of Virginia that seem to both be infected with the same disease, causing red pin-size dots all along the leaves. Over the past couple of weeks these red spots have spread to surrounding plants, and not all leaves on the same plant have them. If anyone could help identify I would be very grateful as I've looked through the IPM database as well as http://ephytia.inra.fr and haven't found anything similar.

Attached are pictures of my worst offender as well as some other plants, if anyone can diagnose what's wrong feel free to mention as I think it's a multifaceted problem. I would also like to know if it's normal for the inside of a tobacco stem to be orange?
The plants have been in the ground for almost 3 and a half months and have not yellowed besides a couple bottom leaves.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

 

[Knucklehead]

I'm guessing brown spot. Your photo 2 shows concentric circles similar to those shown in my links.

brown spot (Alternaria alternata (Fr.) Keissl.)

Tobacco - Brown spot, Alternaria leaf spot (Alternaria alternata)

Tobacco - Brown spot, Alternaria leaf spot (Alternaria alternata)

ephytia.inra.fr

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. You may wish to scan through the topics in our Index of Key Forum Threads, linked in the menu bar.

I find your question difficult to answer. The photos bring to mind Fusarium Wilt and Weather Fleck.

Fusarium Wilt (Diseases and Pests) - ProfiGen

Fusarium Wilt (Diseases and Pests) - Fusarium Wilt - ProfiGen

profigen.com.br

Fusarium wilt Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. nicotianae (Johnson) W.C. Snyder & H.N. Hansen

www.ipmimages.org

weather fleck

My experience with Brown Spot is that the lesions always appeared dark brown and fairly circular.

Bob

 

[Cubana]

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. You may wish to scan through the topics in our Index of Key Forum Threads, linked in the menu bar.

I find your question difficult to answer. The photos bring to mind Fusarium Wilt and Weather Fleck.

Fusarium Wilt (Diseases and Pests) - ProfiGen

Fusarium Wilt (Diseases and Pests) - Fusarium Wilt - ProfiGen

profigen.com.br

Fusarium wilt Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. nicotianae (Johnson) W.C. Snyder & H.N. Hansen

www.ipmimages.org

weather fleck

My experience with Brown Spot is that the lesions always appeared dark brown and fairly circular.

Bob

Thanks for your responses. I too thought it might be brown spot but from all info online the spots are much darker and more circular. Fusarium wilt looks more plausible. I haven't heard of any tobacco diseases with red spots so I am confused. Any comments on the stem color? I've chopped two plants and they both had the same orange stem color.

Is it safe to smoke leaves the leaves that aren't heavily infected with the red spots?

 

[Skafidr]

Is it safe to smoke leaves the leaves that aren't heavily infected with the red spots?

To me, this is the most important question

 

[deluxestogie]

The color within the stalks suggests a systemic infection with something. In general, though leaf quality and yield is reduced by various viral, bacterial and fungal infections, the affected leaves are smokable. Mold, by contrast, presents a health risk when moldy leaf is used for smokeless use, or as a cigar wrapper. Though moldy leaf may or may not be enjoyable to smoke (as cigar filler, cigarette filler, or as pipe tobacco), combustion destroys any fungal aflatoxin present. Moldy leaf is not safe as a cigar wrapper or for smokeless.

I don't believe the leaf shown above is moldy. If it cures adequately, then I would not hesitate to smoke it.

Bob

 

[Cubana]

The color within the stalks suggests a systemic infection with something. In general, though leaf quality and yield is reduced by various viral, bacterial and fungal infections, the affected leaves are smokable. Mold, by contrast, presents a health risk when moldy leaf is used for smokeless use, or as a cigar wrapper. Though moldy leaf may or may not be enjoyable to smoke (as cigar filler, cigarette filler, or as pipe tobacco), combustion destroys any fungal aflatoxin present. Moldy leaf is not safe as a cigar wrapper or for smokeless.

I don't believe the leaf shown above is moldy. If it cures adequately, then I would not hesitate to smoke it.

Bob

Thanks for the detailed response. I have gone ahead and harvested. Looking forward to some smoke in the coming months.

 

[Cubana]

For anyone viewing this thread in the future, I suspect this is a downy mildew infection. Both our veggies and trees near the tobacco are infected with it so it seems the most likely cause. There doesn't seem to be much if any info online on downy mildew infection in tobacco. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe it's just rare. Hope this helps.