Montana Pulse Crop Lab

BOZEMAN - Jul 16/14 - SNS -- Montana State University expects to open a lab for diagnosing insects, diseases and weeds in pulse crops in time for this year's harvest.

Chickpea, dry pea and lentil growers should be able to send samples to the lab this fall, said MSU Extension Plant Pathologist Mary Burrows, who is directing the project. Space previously occupied by the MSU Extension Water Quality program will be remodeled and turned into a 'clean' laboratory this summer. Burrows hopes to hire a lab supervisor/scientist by September.

The Pulse Crop Health Diagnostic Laboratory will be located in Marsh Lab along South Nineteenth Avenue in Bozeman. Funding came through the 2014 Farm Bill, which provided $150,000 for the lab through its "Plant Pest and Disease Management" programs.

"Cooperators from Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington all know there is a need and support this lab to protect this growing industry," said Gary D. Adams, state plant health director for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plant Protection and Quarantine (APHIS, PPQ) in Montana. "Acreage of these crops has significantly increased in the last 10 years, particularly with dry pea, where 338,000 acres were planted in 2003 and 840,000 acres were planted in 2013."

As the number of pulse crop acres grows, issues involving disease, pest management and weed control will become increasingly important, Berndt said. Burrows specifically mentioned issues involving viruses, fungi, bacterial and nematode diseases. "Traditional and molecular diagnostic tools are needed to discriminate between pest species, help us monitor the crop for new diseases and to detect and eliminate pests of concern," Burrows said.

Once it's running, the pulse crop lab will work closely with other MSU laboratories, Burrows said. Among them will be the Schutter Diagnostic Laboratory of which she is director. The Schutter lab already diagnoses plant diseases and pests, but Burrows said it isn't equipped to handle plant diseases and pests that are specific to pulse crops. The Montana State Seed Lab focuses mostly on wheat and grasses. The new lab will also be available to assist other laboratories when they have a large number of samples they need to screen, Burrows said.