Within a few days of transplanting tobacco seedlings to field soil in Zimbabwe, damage often occurs on the buried part of the stems and roots. Rhizoctonia solani can usually be isolated from the dark-brown to black lesions, and this pathogen was thought to be the only one involved. However, plants drenched with benodanil in the seedbeds to control Rhizoctonia, often had more superficial, light-brown lesions from which Fusarium solani (Mart.) Sacc. and F. oxysporum Schl. were isolated. Single hyphal-tip cultures of all these pathogens were pathogenic to tobacco. Aqueous drenches of benomyl, benodanil, and triadimenol applied two days before seedlings were pulled restricted the number of damaged transplants and the mean stem damage caused by the soil pathogens. Triadimenol-treated (1 g/m2) plants were the least infected with Rhizoctonia compared with those treated with benomyl + benodanil (both at 2 g/m2) or with triadimenol at 0.5 g/m2. All fungicide treatments resulted in significantly decreased numbers of plants infected with Fusarium solani, but there was little difference between fungicide treatments. Benomyl + benodanil gave best protection against F. oxysporum but triadimenol at 1 g/m2 also made plants less susceptible to this species. Triadimenol-treated (1 g/m2) plants yielded 5% more salable leaf than the untreated (mean of two experiments) and increased estimated crop value by Z$400/ha. The benomyl + benodanil drench increased mean yield by 4% and estimated value by Z$300/ha.