Chickpea

The disease that limits chickpea growing worldwide, caused by the fungus Ascochyta rabiei. It attacks leaves, stems, and pods, producing tan-to-brown lesions with dark margins, marked with concentric rings of tiny black fruiting bodies. Stem lesions girdle and snap the plant, so the top simply hangs over and dies, and in a wet spring a patch can go from lightly spotted to collapsed in a fortnight. It is both seed-borne and debris-borne: it arrives on infected seed, overwinters on last year's stubble, and then splashes plant to plant in rain or on your sleeves as you walk the row. This is why chickpeas are grown as a dryland crop, and why a humid eastern spring is the hardest place to bring one in.

Watch for: Round or oval tan lesions with dark brown borders on leaves and pods, dotted with concentric rings of pinhead-sized black specks - those rings are the identifying feature. Elongated dark lesions on stems that girdle them, leaving the top of the plant snapped over and hanging. Patches of collapse that start at one plant and spread outward down the row after every rain. Dark blotches or sunken spots on the seed when you thresh, which is how the disease rides into next year's crop.

Prevent: Start with clean, disease-free seed and never save seed from a crop that showed the disease. Rotate three to four years away from chickpeas and clear the stubble rather than leaving it standing. Space plants and rows widely so foliage dries fast, and site the crop where air moves. Never walk, weed, or harvest a chickpea patch while the foliage is wet, since that is how it travels plant to plant - this single habit is the most effective thing a gardener can do. Sow as early as the season allows so the crop is filling before the wettest weeks. Where they are offered, grow varieties listed as ascochyta-tolerant; there is no immunity, but the differences are real, and small-seeded desi types generally hold up better than large kabuli ones.

Treat: There is no cure for an infected plant. Pull and destroy badly affected plants early, before rain splashes spores onto the rest of the row, and bin rather than compost the debris. Where a crop is worth protecting, a protectant fungicide applied before or at the first sign of disease can hold it - use only a product labeled for chickpeas, follow the label exactly, and observe its pre-harvest interval. Above all, do not save seed from an affected crop, and move the bed onto a different family next season.

The single reason a home chickpea crop fails in the humid East. If you follow only one rule from this entry, make it the one about staying out of the patch when the plants are wet.

Aphids are small soft-bodied sap-suckers - green, black, gray, pink, or waxy white, and mostly wingless - that gather in dense colonies on the tenderest new growth: shoot tips, buds, and the undersides of young leaves. They breed extremely fast in mild weather, so a few can become hundreds inside a week. Their feeding curls and distorts soft growth, and the sticky honeydew they excrete coats everything below and turns black with sooty mold. Ants often farm and defend the colonies for that honeydew. A few aphids are normal on almost any plant and a healthy plant shrugs them off; only dense, persistent colonies do real damage, and some aphids also spread plant viruses as they feed.

Watch for: Dense clusters of tiny insects packed onto shoot tips, flower buds, and the undersides of young leaves. Curled, cupped, or distorted new growth that never opens properly. A sticky shine on the leaves - and on whatever sits under the plant - that later goes black with sooty mold. Tiny white cast skins left behind where a colony has been feeding. Ants running steadily up and down the stems, which is often the first thing you notice. Mottled, streaked, or misshapen leaves that do not grow out can mean a virus the aphids brought with them rather than the feeding itself.

Prevent: Go easy on nitrogen: the soft, lush growth that heavy feeding produces is exactly what aphids breed on. Check new growth once a week through spring and early summer so you catch colonies while they are still small, and rub the first few out with your fingers. Leave flowering plants nearby and skip broad-spectrum sprays - ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps do most of this work for free, and they only stay if there is something for them to eat. Keep ants off the plant where you can, since they protect aphids from those predators. Water steadily so plants are not stressed, and check any new plant over before you bring it home or move it indoors, since aphids usually arrive on something else.

Treat: Knock the colonies off with a hard jet of water and repeat every few days - on most plants that alone ends it. Pinch out or prune off the worst-infested tips rather than treating the whole plant. If colonies keep rebuilding, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the insects, covering leaf undersides, and repeat weekly until they are gone; treat early or late in the day, and never spray a wilted or heat-stressed plant. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides - they kill the ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that were about to solve the problem for you, and aphid numbers usually come back worse afterward. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating; follow that label and observe its pre-harvest interval. On anything you eat, wash leaves, heads, and buds well before use, since aphids hide down in crowns, folds, and tight growth.

Aphids vector the viruses that stunt and mottle chickpeas, which matters more than the feeding itself on a seed-saved crop. Note that hosing them off wets the foliage, so do it early on a day the plants will dry fast - a wet chickpea patch spreads ascochyta blight.

Root rot is not one organism but a group of soil fungi and water molds - Pythium, Phytophthora, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia and others - that sit harmlessly in most soils and only turn destructive when the ground stays saturated. Waterlogged soil drives the air out, the roots suffocate, and the weakened tissue is invaded and goes soft, brown, and stringy. Because the damage is underground you usually see it first as something that looks like drought: wilting, yellowing, stunting, a plant that does not respond to being watered. Overwatering, heavy compacted ground, a low spot that collects runoff, a pot with no drainage or a saucer left standing full, and cold wet soil in winter are the usual causes. Once roots have actually rotted there is no cure - this is a problem you prevent rather than treat.

Watch for: Wilting in the middle of the day on a plant whose soil is damp - the classic tell, and the reason people water a rotting plant and finish it off. Leaves yellowing from the bottom up, dull off-color foliage, and growth that stalls for no visible reason. Whole shoots, or one side of the plant, collapsing while the rest still looks fine. Soft, dark, or mushy tissue at the base of the stem or at the crown, sometimes with a sour smell. Lift a failing plant and look at the roots: healthy ones are firm and pale, rotted ones are brown or black and slimy, and the outer layer slips off between your fingers leaving a thread of core behind. Seedlings that topple over at soil level are the same problem, called damping-off.

Prevent: Drainage is the whole defense. Match the plant to the site first - something that wants sharp drainage will not survive heavy clay or a low, water-collecting spot however well you tend it. Where the ground is heavy, plant on a raised bed, berm, or slope, or grow in a container. Set plants at the depth they were already growing, since burying the crown or the root flare is a common cause of rot, and keep mulch pulled back a few inches from the stem base instead of piled against it. Water the soil rather than the calendar: check that the top inch or two is dry before watering again, cut back hard in cool weather and winter dormancy, and never leave a pot standing in a full saucer. Do not plant or dig in soggy ground, and go easy on rich amendments for plants that want it lean. Rotate annual crops, and start with clean healthy plants and fresh mix.

Treat: There is no cure for tissue that has already rotted, so act on the conditions rather than looking for a spray. Stop watering at once and fix the drainage - open up compacted soil, or move the plant to a raised, sharply drained position or a container. Lift a badly affected plant, cut away every soft dark root and rotted section with a clean blade back to firm pale tissue, and replant only the healthy parts into fresh free-draining soil or mix. Often the better move is to give up on the plant and save its offspring instead: cuttings, offsets, or divisions taken from firm healthy growth root readily and give you a clean start. Bin the rotted material rather than composting it, and correct the drainage before you replant, because the rot comes straight back in the same wet spot.

Chickpeas are sown into cool ground in early spring, which is exactly when a heavy or low-lying bed stays saturated - the commonest cause of a row that never comes up evenly. Sow on a ridge or a raised bed and water the row in once rather than keeping it damp.

The most common sweet-corn pest: a night-flying moth lays eggs on fresh silks, and the caterpillar tunnels down into the ear tip to feed on developing kernels.

Watch for: Chewed, discolored kernels and dark frass at the ear tip, and a fat caterpillar (green, brown, or pink) inside the husk near the top.

Prevent: Choose varieties with tight husk tips; a few drops of vegetable or mineral oil (with a little Bt) on the silk 5-6 days after silking smothers young larvae; encourage natural enemies.

Treat: Damage is usually confined to the tip - just cut it off. Bt sprayed on silks catches young larvae; the ear below is fine to eat.

The main pod pest of chickpeas - one caterpillar can work through several pods, and with only one or two seeds in each, the loss adds up faster than it does on a bean. An early crop that fills before midsummer largely escapes it.

Chickpea foliage is not like other legumes. Every leaf, stem, and pod is covered in glandular hairs that continuously exude a sour liquid rich in malic and oxalic acid - a real plant defense, and strong enough that it was collected in antiquity as a vinegar substitute. Brushing past a dry plant does little, but working a wet patch coats hands, forearms, and clothing in it. It stains fabric permanently, and on skin it can cause stinging, irritation, and in sensitive people a rash or a mild chemical burn, particularly where skin is already broken or where the exposure goes on for a while. Commercial chickpea crews wear protective clothing for exactly this reason, and it is the thing about growing chickpeas that most often catches a new gardener out.

Watch for: Wet chickpea foliage after rain, dew, or overhead watering - the exudate is at its strongest then. A sour, vinegary smell as you work down the row. Hands that feel sticky and then begin to sting after weeding a damp patch. Dark, permanent staining on sleeves, gloves, and knees. Redness, itching, or a rash appearing on the forearms hours after working the crop. Children picking through a chickpea bed barehanded.

Prevent: Wear gloves and long sleeves whenever you weed, thin, pick green pods, or pull plants at harvest, and change out of those clothes afterward rather than wearing them the rest of the day. Work the row when the foliage is dry wherever you can - the same rule that keeps ascochyta blight from spreading, so it pays twice over. Water at the base rather than overhead. Wash hands and forearms with soap and water when you come in, and keep the exudate well away from your eyes.

Treat: Wash the skin with soap and water as soon as you notice it and the irritation usually settles within a few hours. A cool compress and a plain moisturizer help, and an over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream will calm a mild reaction. If it gets into the eyes, rinse with clean water for several minutes. Seek medical advice for a blistering reaction, for anything that keeps spreading, or if a large area of skin is involved. Stained clothing does not come clean - keep an old shirt for the chickpea bed.

Worth knowing before your first chickpea harvest rather than after it. It is not dangerous, but pulling a damp row barehanded is a memorably unpleasant way to learn about it.

A soil-borne fungus (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris) that plugs the water-carrying vessels of a chickpea and kills it, sometimes at the seedling stage and sometimes just as the pods are filling. It persists in soil for years as resting spores, so once a bed carries it, chickpeas cannot be grown there for a long time. Warm soil favours it, which is one more reason a late sowing goes badly.

Watch for: A plant that yellows, droops from the top down, and dies while its neighbours look fine. Drooping that begins on one side or one branch rather than all over. Brown or black discoloration inside the stem when you slit it lengthwise near the base. Seedlings that emerge and then simply collapse. Patches of dead plants recurring in the same part of a bed year after year.

Prevent: Rotate three to four years away from chickpeas and do not put them back into a bed where a wilt appeared. Use clean seed and grow resistant varieties where they are offered, since resistance is the main tool against this disease. Sow early into cool soil, keep drainage sharp, avoid over-watering, and do not carry soil or tools from an affected bed to a clean one.

Treat: There is no cure and no spray. Pull and destroy affected plants along with the soil around their roots, bin rather than compost them, and move chickpeas to fresh ground. Solarizing the bed through high summer and a long rotation reduce the fungus but do not eliminate it.

Host-specific to chickpea - the fusarium that wilts a tomato is a different special form of the same species and will not cross to your chickpeas, which is why this row carries its own slug rather than the shared one.