WREC's Chickpea Planting Date Study Covered At WREC Dryland Field Day, July 13

Dr. Audrey Kalil, WREC Plant Pathologist, will be sharing information on the WREC's chickpea planting date study and the plant pathology research program at the WREC Dryland Field Day, July 13.

"The focus of my talk will be a chickpea planting date study, where we are evaluating three planting dates for their effect on early seed soil-borne disease, Ascochyta blight severity, yield and seed protein," said Dr. Kalil.

She leads both basic and applied research programs focused on management of plant diseases on the economically important, highly diverse crops in western North Dakota.

Along with this work, she has several ongoing projects to improve disease management in pulse crops, mainly focused on root rots of peas and lentils and Ascochyta blight of chickpeas.

This will be the WREC's second year conducting research on the chickpea planting date study. The study is being replicated at the Hettinger REC and North Central REC in Minot along with three locations at Montana Ag Experiment Stations. The effort in Montana is being led by Dr. Frankie Crutcher, MSU EARC Plant Pathologist. It is funded by the Northern Pulse Growers Association. The research team plans to repeat the study in 2023 to confirm their findings.

 With the chickpea planting date study, researchers are comparing an early May planting date to the last plant date to qualify for full crop insurance for chickpea (May 20) and a date five days later. 

"If we find that delayed planting beyond May 20 does not significantly reduce yield, and perhaps has a beneficial effect on disease management then there is the potential to request that the date get pushed back. Currently, the last plant date is the same for all of North Dakota and all of Montana. Given the huge range in growing conditions within this area, we hypothesize that results may differ based on trial location," explained Kalil.