Abstract Pulse crops, including pea, lentil, chickpea, and faba bean, are central to the Northern Great Plains agriculture and global food systems. Yet, their productivity is increasingly threatened by multiple pests, diseases, and weeds, which can have synergistic negative effects on yield. While research highlights the complexity of these interactions and their impact on yield, extension professionals face persistent challenges in communicating this complexity to growers. Yield loss estimates are often uncertain, vary across environments, and become especially difficult to interpret when co-infections or pest–disease–weed interactions occur. Growers, however, require clear, practical guidance to make timely management decisions. This paper reviews the major sources of yield loss in pulse crops and identifies the communication barriers extensionists encounter when translating scientific findings into extension advice. It further outlines strategies to improve extension effectiveness, including the use of visual aids and decision-support tools, participatory approaches, including grower field schools and demonstration plots, and the integration of economic thresholds into grower education programs. Extension systems must move beyond single-stressor explanations and adopt approaches that reflect the interactive and dynamic nature of crop losses. Strengthening extension strategies in this area will improve grower understanding, support informed decision-making, and ultimately enhance the resilience and profitability of pulse production systems.
Sabaghian et al. (Thu,) studied this question.