These virus diseases are also found in chickpeas overseas where the crop is grown. However, their symptoms are often confused with those of nutrient deficiencies, physiological disorders, herbicide damage and waterlogging. The viruses Both AMV and CMV require living plant tissue to survive and cannot persist in stubble or soil. As with CMV in narrow-leafed lupins, this is how these viruses survive from one season to the next. Weeds are not important sources of infection under Western Australian conditions.
Aphids spread the viruses from the seed-infected plants to healthy plants.
They transmit non-persistently so they pick up the viruses rapidly but also lose them rapidly on probing. Although aphids rarely colonise chickpea plants, they still probe them as they move through the crop searching for plants they prefer, spreading the viruses as they go. Preliminary observations indicate that losses in chickpeas are likely to be similar in Australia. Symptoms Current season symptom development varies for each virus and between desi and kabuli types. Early infection is the most severe with necrosis sometimes extending throughout the plant resulting in death.