Symptoms of Oats with Halo Blight
Halo blight in oats presents as small, buff-colored, water-soaked lesions. These lesions usually occur just on foliage, but the disease can also infect the leaf sheaths and chaff. As the disease progresses, the lesions expand and coalesce into blotches or streaks with a characteristic pale green or yellow halo surrounding the brown lesion.
Halo Bacterial Blight Control
Although the disease is not fatal to the overall oat crop, heavy infections do kill off the leaves. The bacterium enters the leaf tissue through the stoma or through insect injury. The blight is fostered by wet weather and survives on crop detritus, volunteer grain plants, and wild grasses, in soil, and on grain seed. Wind and rain spread the bacteria from plant to plant and to different parts of the same plant. To manage oat halo blight, use only clean, disease-free seed, practice crop rotation, remove any crop detritus, and, if possible, avoid the use of overhead irrigation. Also, manage insect pests since insect damage opens the plants up to bacterial infections.
