When dry, this exudate turns into small thin flakes that are easily removed from the leaf surface. This disease may superficially resemble fungus stripe. However, the fact that all barley plants are uniformly infected in a given location rules out fungus stripe since stripe is seed-borne and is normally scattered throughout the crop. Oats Halo blight begins as small light green oval spots with dark water-soaked centres. The spots join to form irregular brown blotches.
Stripe blight produces elongated spots with no pale margins.
These spots also have water-soaked centres and turn brown later in the year. Wheat Bacterial stripe produces dark green, water-soaked lesions that later turn brown. Black chaff appears on the kernels as dark stripes on the glumes. These often join and the glumes turn black. These symptoms occur on both wheat and barley.