In Booming Market, Growers Ignore Disease Risk

BOZEMAN - Feb 16/06 - SNS -- This year's high prices are attracting growers in Montana, North Dakota and western Canada Prairie provinces to large caliber kabuli chickpeas like bees to sugar.

Memories of the damage caused by aschochyta blight in 2000 and 2001, which caused seeded area to enter a tailspin, are fading. This winter's record-high chickpea prices may cause some to not worry about seeding infected seed or planning for disease outbreaks in their fields, but disease control is essential if they are to succeed, say crop and disease experts.

One kind of chickpea, the kabuli, is generally seen on salad bars. It's golden-brown and about a half-inch in diameter with a dimple. It's little brother is a desi chickpea, smaller and often added to crop rotations for the "pulse" of nitrogen it gives to the soil.

Growing either type of chickpea adds nitrogen to the soil and helps break disease and weed cycles common in wheat, says Montana State University's Perry Miller, a cropping systems researcher.

While Miller likes those aspects of chickpea production, he's seen aschochyta blight rip through chickpea fields and tear out the profits, as have two plant pathologists with whom he works closely: Jack Riesselman of MSU Extension and Kent McKay of North Dakota Research and Extension Center at Minot.

All three are concerned that record-high prices may entice chickpea growers into using any seed they can get, and sub-standard seed puts growers at great risk for loosing the whole crop to aschochyta fungus that can be brought into an area on seed.

McKay said in an e-mail that new growing guidelines were developed through research "after the first aschochyta disasters in 2000 and 2001." After that, production in Montana and North Dakota went from 50,000 acres to nearly zero, and Canada, which had led North American production, went from more than a million acres to 100,000.

One key to preventing aschochyta blight is seed testing, Riesselman said. Quality seed is lab-tested for aschochyta and for its percent germination, and Riesselman runs the lab at MSU that does that work. Lab testing is essential, since once Ascochyta fungi are introduced into the soil, it can be years before it is safe to try to grow a susceptible crop again in that soil, Riesselman said.

On the other hand, the trio agrees that with clean seed and the right management based on the newest information, the risks are reasonable.

"There's still a lot to know about chickpea management, but the information is there," says Miller. At the top of the management guidelines is that growers have to be ready to use fungicides to prevent aschochyta blight if the conditions make an outbreak likely.

One thing that has changed since 2000 is that guidelines now call for a fungicide to be applied if conditions favor aschochyta, even if a grower does not see the disease in a field.

Much of the new management information comes from research by teams led by Miller at MSU and McKay at North Dakota State University. "We now have the knowledge base to see chickpea acres soar into the future," McKay wrote.

The research shows that seeding date is not as important as once thought, said Miller. "I thought seeding date was critical, but it's not as crucial as I thought. Seeding early has a measurable benefit, but chickpeas hold their yield better than other crops," he said.

In addition, farmers had told the researchers that kabuli chickpeas gave less nitrogen benefit to a succeeding crop of wheat than the smaller desi chickpea. "We didn't see any difference in the benefit to a succeeding crop of spring wheat. They all did a nice positive job," Miller said.

And while Miller is attracted to chickpeas and other legumes because of the crop rotation benefits of breaking weed and disease cycles, boom and bust prices and threat of aschochyta blight makes him caution growers to start by learning everything they can about managing the crop before betting the farm on it.

--- by Carol Flaherty, Montana State University