SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. – An Agriculture Canada researcher thinks he may have discovered a management technique to help control ascochyta blight in chickpeas.
“I feel kind of optimistic about this thing,” said Yantai Gan, a scientist at the Semiarid Prairie Agricultural Research Centre in Swift Current.
He is experimenting with an alternate seeding trial that squeezes what would normally be four rows of chickpeas into two.
“We call it alternate seeding but really we’re looking at changing the canopy structure of the plant.”
Read Also
Interest in biological crop inputs continues to grow
It was only a few years ago that interest in alternative methods such as biologicals to boost a crop’s nutrient…
Doubling up the rows creates a thicker canopy with a wider gap between rows. Instead of 25 centimetres separating two lines of plants, there is a 50 cm margin.
Using a modified sprayer with nozzles that wrap around the canopy, Gan and his team are able to use the extra space to get better fungicide application.
“We spray fungicide on top of the canopy and also on two sides of the canopy.”
The alternate seeding arrangement allows researchers to coat parts of the plant that could never be reached under traditional planting methods. Gan is confident that will lead to better disease control.
“Ascochyta disease will be significantly decreased with this structure,” he said.
The seed-borne fungus has crippled the Saskatchewan chickpea industry that once generated more than $100 million in annual export revenue. The disease is the primary reason prairie acreage has wilted to 115,000 acres in 2004 from 1.2 million acres in 2001.
Disease control has proven costly, requiring up to three applications of foliar fungicide in wet years like this one.
Better disease control is the main goal of Gan’s new crop management technique, but a side benefit is that it requires only 70 percent of the fungicide that would normally be applied to a traditional chickpea crop.
In addition, he is testing a treatment that uses 70 percent of the regular seeding rate, representing another potential cost saving for farmers.
If the trials generate similar or slightly lower yields than the control plot, the new production technique will be deemed a success because of the reduced input requirements.
The sprayer modification involves time and expense, but Gan said it is not a complicated procedure.
“It’s doable. It’s not difficult.”
The ultimate weapon in the fight against ascochyta blight remains the introduction of genetic improvements in chickpea cultivars through breeding programs at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.
There is encouraging news on that front as well. Saskatchewan researchers are working closely with Australian chickpea breeders who plan to release a large number of ascochyta resistant varieties in that country within the next two years.
But even if Canadian breeders are able to deliver better cultivars, they won’t be 100 percent resistant. That means Gan’s alternate seeding technique could still be a useful tool for growers if his trials prove successful.
