After flowering, infection of pods can lead to infected seed. After harvest, the infected stubble also carries the infection into the next season and will form the most significant source of infection in areas where the disease has become established. After the break of the season, wetting of the infected stubble will lead to the release of ascospores. These are wind blown spores and can infect chickpea crops several hundred metres away. These initial infections produce pycnidia and the cycle proceeds as described for seed borne infection.
Lesions usually develop near the ground and have a white fluffy, cotton wool appearance .
Lifting off the white fluff may reveal hard black 'grains', which are the sclerotes or survival structures of the fungus. Sclerotinia survives on stubble or in the soil as sclerotia, and may persist for several years. Spores produced in wither or spring will infect chickpeas or alternative hosts such as other legume crops, canola and broadleaf weeds such as cape weed. Spread of infection within the crop is limited as it only occurs through direct contact between infected plants and new hosts.