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New Cotton Disease Affecting SC Farmers

The disease starts at the bottom of the crop and works its way up and leaves white spots under the leaves.

Cameron, SC (WLTX) - A new disease could have a big impact on South Carolina farmers that grow cotton.

Drake Perrow is a farmer in the town of Cameron. He's got his eye on a new disease affecting his cotton.

"Not panicking yet but it is something that has opened our eyes. To have something new like this, of course it takes a little time to find out what it is, how it's going to react, how fast it moves," said Perrow.

He's talking about Areolate Mildew or False Mildew. It's rare to see in the United States. Perrow says only farmers in Georgia and Alabama have experienced it before.

"Now if we get into a week of rainy, cloudy weather, it could become a real problem. Something like this could devastate you if we got into the wrong weather pattern," explained Perrow.

The disease starts at the bottom of the crop and works its way up. You can tell if the plant has the disease if you see white spots under the leaves.

"These leaves are what feeds these bowls," said Perrow.

Perrow says they’ve also dealt with another disease called Target that leaves circular marks on the crop.

To treat the infected False Mildew crops, he's relying on sunlight and fungicide.

"(We’re good) If we can keep it down low. Now if it keeps moving on up, then yes, we’ll lose everything on the top and that's where the problem will be,” said Perrow.

He says the disease could be a good thing if it cleans out the area underneath the crop but only time will tell.

"Scary right now since we don't know what the future holds as far as weather. We just got to keep our eyes open. There's always a positive in something that's negative too. In the end it could be a positive thing," said Perrow.

Perrow says it could be a few months until they figure out how much the disease may affect cotton in our state.

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