Pests, Diseases and Disorders of Peas and Beans: A Colour Handbook PDF

Preface

Large seeded legumes, cultivated as pea and beans, are an important crop worldwide, both as high value vegetables or as a dry harvest crop which is high in protein and a staple addition to the diet. Peas and beans are also important crops in a farming rotation as they allow a break from cereal production in arable areas and the residual nitrogen produced by peas and faba beans are utilized effectively by any following crop. Intensive production can often result in an increase in pest or disease pressure thereby putting crops at risk either from yield losses or reduction of quality. Such problems are often resolved by the use of pesticides or of cultural methods of control or avoidance. It is important that problems are recognized early on and correctly identified and assessed as a possible risk before any treatment is applied. Identification of these problems is therefore a key part of crop protection and crop management. However, there is a shortage of experienced field pathologists and entomologists and those who are engaged in the identification and advice to growers are less crop-specialized. Assistance with identification in the field is therefore a welcome aid to all who are engaged in this work and specialist publications covering specific crop problems are considered key assets.

I have specialized in the research, identification, and control of pests and diseases of the pea and bean crops for more than 30 years. During this time I have been in contact with many growers and advisers and decided that a distillation of this experience would form an integral part of a pest and disease book for legume crop protection, with descriptions of symptoms linked to detailed illustrations and notes on prevention and control. Nigel Cattlin has an international reputation for the production of high quality photographs and his illustrations are an essential part of this book. The approach has been to cover a wide range of common and less common problems in a book that will be easy to use as a field guide for growers, advisers, and extension workers as well being as useful reference for researchers.