2-28 IAN Soil Fungus

Aphanomyces root rot, is a disease that can cause 100 percent crop yield losses in peas. Idaho Pea and Lentil Commission scientist Todd Schultz told me that it gets into the soil and... "does the earth itself become infected with this fungicide? Yes, It is called an.oomycete and the disease is a cell with a really tough wall. It sits in the ground and if there is water it moves around. Otherwise it just waits and because it has such a tough wall, it stays in the ground forever. It is kind of specific peas but there is an Aphanomyces that affects sugar beets, an Aphanomyces that affects peas, but it is really reliant on water so some years it is really bad, if you have a really wet year so generally it is in the low ground where water accumulates and high ground doesn't get affected so much so in the pea fields, it'll wipe out the flat and at the top of the hill you might have some growth. Once the soil is infected the only way to fight it, is to move and find other soil.