Keith Edmisten and Steve Koenning
The wet cloudy weather at planting was fairly conducive to wet weather blight, particularly for some planting dates. Wet weather blight is caused by ascochyta fungus. We see this from time to time in cotton in North Carolina during wet cloudy periods. All the situations that have been brought to our attention have the disease showing only on the cotyledons as seen in the picture below. Notice that the new leaves look healthy and the symptoms are limited to the cotyledons and older leaves . This outbreak should be of little consequence unless we hit another extended period of cloudy wet weather.