Didymella rabiei, common name chickpea ascochyta blight fungus, is a fungal plant pathogen of chickpea. Didymella rabiei is the teleomorph of Ascochyta rabiei, which is the anamorph, but both names refer to the same species.
Names
The
Botanical name rabiei refers to
rabbia del cece or 'rabies of chickpea', a name for the disease.
The disease is also referred to as ascochyta blight but there are other fungal species that cause diseases in other Legume species that also go by that term. It also goes by the name blight of chickpea.
Signs and symptoms
Once ascochyta blight has infected a healthy chickpea plant, it will start to develop lesions on all aerial plant parts. If a seed pod becomes infected, it may initially be asymptomatic, but will eventually develop dark lesions on the surface of the seed coats.
Description
D. rabiei has a spherical punctiform and membranous
pyrenium, at first
lutescent then opening to a rounded black
ostiole.
It has numerous elliptical and
hyaline spores or varying size.
The fungus survives within the infected crop debris from the previous growing season. It requires the infected debris, because it does not produce resting spores that allow it to survive in the soil during the winter. When surviving in crop debris, it typically lasts longer if exposed to drier conditions. When both compatible mating types of the fungus are present, it is able to develop a pseudothecia that produces airborne spores. These airborne spores play a major role in the dispersal of the pathogen.
Hosts
D. rabiei is known for infecting cultivated annual chickpea (
Cicer arietinum),
but also commonly infects other wild perennial chickpea species such as
Cicer monbretti,
Cicer ervoides,
,
and
Cicer pinnatifidum.
Other host species include:
Proper management practices
The most important way to protect susceptible crops from this pathogen is to use resistant cultivars when planting. However, this disease has multiple mating types, and may lead to pathogen resistance if the same cultivars are repeatedly used. To add to this, there are a number of cultural practices that can help reduce the vigor of
D. rabiei. These include, but are not limited to: using certified disease free seed, rotation to new crops every two or three years, and planting in wide rows with adequate spacing.
Effects on aquafaba
A chemical analysis of
aquafaba indicated that a number of proteins in a particularly well-performing batch were found to be versions from
D. rabiei, specifically tRNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase, o-acyltransferase,
oxidoreductase, histone H3, and histone H2B.
It is unclear how much of an effect these proteins have on the properties of aquafaba.
External links
