What measures do you take to minimise the effects of blackspot in peas?
Many of the farmers surveyed were dissatisfied with the performance of peas and the slow improvement in pea yields achieved in the last decade. At the beginning of 1999, farmers planned to grow fewer peas than in past years. While farmers were dissatisfied with the performance of peas they recognised that peas provide substantial benefits to the following cereal crops, such as less cereal root disease and some nitrogen benefit. Farmers are applying more nitrogen fertiliser to their cereal crops so the nitrogen benefit of pea crop may not be as important as it was in the past. The greatest concerns farmers have in producing field peas are diseases and weeds. It is likely that these factors contributed to the decline in pea yields from 1983 to 1994 (2). Farmers are changing their production practices to try to decrease disease pressure and improve weed management. They feel that changes they have made in weed management practices are more beneficial than changes they have made in disease
