Lesions of gray leaf spot are generally observed first on the lower leaves of the maize plant, progressing upwards reaching leaves in the middle and upper canopy towards end of the growing season. Although symptoms may appear during the vegetative growth stages (V8), severe leaf blighting is most common after anthesis. This has led researches to speculate on several possible causes for this pattern of disease development: the influence of the physiological age of the plant, the availability of inoculum, and the microclimate within the canopy. Rupe et al. (48) studied the effect of the environment and plant maturity on the development of gray leaf spot. They observed that regardless of the planting date, initial symptoms did not appear until plants were near anthesis. This led these researchers to the conclusion that plant maturity was an important factor in the late season development of gray leaf spot. Hilty et al (27) also observed that under field conditions, the onset of gray leaf spot epidemics coincided with silk emergence.
However, they concluded based on the fact that they were able to successfully inoculate 2-to-3 week-old seedlings that the disease was not associated with maize senescence. Similarly, Beckman and Payne (3) demonstrated that neither plant nor leaf age influenced the susceptibility to gray leaf spot under greenhouse conditions. They further reported that younger plants developed sporulating lesions 3-to-4 days earlier than mature plants. Based of the growth of hyphae across or through stomata of excised leaf disks, Gwinn et al. (25) reported a positive correlation between stomatal penetration by C. zeae-mayd/s and age of leaf tissue.