Oh. My. God.

NO, it's not dispersants floating from the Gulf all the way up to Tennessee - and besides, plants in New Jersey and Massachusetts, to name two other states I have personally seen, have the identical foliar damage. Given the rapidity of the impacts on crops, I really think it's worth revisiting the potential for ethanol emissions to be the primary culprit. Unfortunately this topic of research - what impacts acetaldehyde has on vegetation - has barely been explored...but here is a link (thanks Climaticide) to the beginnings of an inquiry - and high time, too.

Check out the comments on the story accompanying the video, from people reporting the same phenomena.

From an earlier post:

"Based on the current state of knowledge in this field, it can be safely concluded that the use of E10 (ethanol) would result in a 5-15% reduction of CO; a near-neutral effect for NO2 emissions; a fairly neutral effect for ozone in smog events; small increases in aldehydes during smog events; possibly large increases in longer-term average aldehyde (e.g., acetaldehyde) levels; small increases in longer-term average levels of peroxyacetyl nitrate; and a small effect on benzene emission levels, dependent on fuel formulation."

from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/air/out-ext/effe/ethanol/index-eng.php#review_ethanol_fuel_blend

ACETALDEHYDE (possibly large increases)! Hmmmm, here's an entry in Wikipedia, linked below. But I want to copy this part in full because it gives me the chills.

Peroxyacyl nitrates, or PANs, are powerful respiratory and eye irritants present in photochemical smog. They are formed from a peroxyacyl radical andnitrogen dioxide, for example peroxyacetyl nitrate, CH3COOONO2:
Hydrocarbons + O2 + NO2 + light → CH3COOONO2
The general equation is;
CxHyO3 + NO2 → CxHyO3NO2
PANs are both toxic and irritating, as they dissolve more readily in water than ozone. They are lachrymators, causing eye irritation at concentrations of only a few parts per billion. At higher concentrations they cause extensive damage to vegetation. Both PANs and their chlorinated derivates are said to be mutagenic, as they can be a factor causing skin cancer.
PANs are secondary pollutants, which means they are not directly emitted as exhaust from power plants or internal combustion engines, but they are formed from other pollutants by chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Free radical reactions catalyzed by ultraviolet light from the sun oxidize unburned hydrocarbons to aldehydes, ketones, and dicarbonyl compounds, whose secondary reactions create peroxyacyl radicals, which combine with nitrogen dioxide to form peroxyacyl nitrates.
The most common peroxyacyl radical is peroxyacetyl, which can be formed from the free radical oxidation of acetaldehyde, various ketones, or the photolysis of dicarbonyl compounds such as methylglyoxal or diacetyl.
Since they dissociate quite slowly in the atmosphere into radicals and NO2, PANs are able to transport these unstable compounds far away from the urban and industrial origin. This is important for tropospheric ozone production as PANs transport NOx to regions where it can more efficiently produce ozone.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxyacyl_nitrates