Fourteen Burley tobacco varieties were evaluated for blue mold susceptibility in a replicated field experiment at the Upper Mountain Research Station, Laurel Springs, NC, in 1996. The experiment was duplicated in two separate sections. One section was sprayed weekly with Acrobat MZ (9% dimethomorph + 60% mancozeb) to protect against blue mold, and the second section was not sprayed. In the nonsprayed section, percent blue mold damage ranged from a low of 15.1% for TN 90 to a high of 54.8% for KY 8959. However, harvested yield differences were not as large as percent disease differences, indicating that yields can rebound following blue mold damage. In the Acrobat MZ sprayed section, disease levels ranged between 1.4% to 4.6% and yields averaged 522 kg/ha (24%) higher than in the nonsprayed section. This experiment is being repeated in 1997.