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PureHarvest · December 6, 2016

The "tar spots" are your tip off (blue circle in the photo below) that you have a sucking/scraping/piercing bug. The tar spots are their droppings.

You are not looking small enough for bugs. Thrips larvae are teeny tiny (look at black circle). You might have to look at your original photo that I copied and put the black circle around to see it better.

IMG_3268.jpg

Thrips larvae stock photo. This is extremely magnified:

43b_ThripsNymphsClose.jpg

I do not think all of the damage we are seeing is directly thrips damage. Seems you have other stuff going on with the water stained look to the leaves in the 1st photo you posted. Could be that one problem lead to another.
Like: 1: Cultural conditions stressed the plant (water/nutrients/temperature/light). 2: Plant is susceptible to fungal pathogens. 3. Insects find your plant irresistible due to 1 and 2. Can possibly interchange order of the bug and fungus. Edema could be in there too in step 1.

December 6, 2016	#15
PureHarvest Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Mid-Atlantic right on the line of Zone 7a and 7b Posts: 1,369	The "tar spots" are your tip off (blue circle in the photo below) that you have a sucking/scraping/piercing bug. The tar spots are their droppings. You are not looking small enough for bugs. Thrips larvae are teeny tiny (look at black circle). You might have to look at your original photo that I copied and put the black circle around to see it better. IMG_3268.jpg Thrips larvae stock photo. This is extremely magnified: 43b_ThripsNymphsClose.jpg I do not think all of the damage we are seeing is directly thrips damage. Seems you have other stuff going on with the water stained look to the leaves in the 1st photo you posted. Could be that one problem lead to another. Like: 1: Cultural conditions stressed the plant (water/nutrients/temperature/light). 2: Plant is susceptible to fungal pathogens. 3. Insects find your plant irresistible due to 1 and 2. Can possibly interchange order of the bug and fungus. Edema could be in there too in step 1. Last edited by PureHarvest; December 6, 2016 at 04:13 PM.