Premature ripening of shoots and dieback of patches in dense crops (especially lentil) because of infections on the lower stems. Infected structures become bleached and shredded and whitish mouldy growth may occur on the stem surface in wet weather. Black fungus resting bodies (sclerotia) up to 1 cm long develop in and on infected structures.
Heavy infestations cause high yield losses in bean. In pea and lentil yield losses are generally less, unless prolonged wet weather promotes severe dieback. Contamination of harvested peas with sclerotia may cause problems because sclerotia are similar in size to split peas. Yeild losses are hard to predict as they are dependent on stage of crop at infection as well as the percentage of plants infected. Losses rarely exceed 20% and are highest when the infection takes place at early flower.
