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Department of Agronomy, Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Mahanandi
A field experiment was conducted to study the growth and yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under different sowing beds, on sandy loam soils at College Farm, Agricultural College, Mahanandi campus of Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University during rabi, 2021-2022. The experiment was laid out in split-plot design with nine treatments and replicated thrice. The results revealed that sowing beds didn’t show any significant influence on plant height, 100 seed weight, haulm yield and harvest index. Significantly higher number of branches and dry matter production was registered with broad bed and furrow with paired rows than flat bed and ridge and furrow. Broad bed & furrow with paired rows recorded significantly greater number of pods per plant and seed yield than flatbed and was at par with ridge and furrow. Two irrigations each at 30 and 50 DAS found significant influence on plant height and number of branches plant-1, dry matter production, number of pods plant-1, seed yield and haulm yield than one irrigation at 30 DAS and rainfed.
KEYWORDS: Chickpea, sowing beds, irrigation levels, rabi, yield.
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important rabi pulse crop grown in India for its economic importance besides maintaining soil fertility and often known as “king of pulses”. In general chickpea is known as gram or Bengal-gram. In India, chickpea is cultivated an area of 9.69 million hectares with a production of 11.07 million tonnes and with a productivity of 1142 kg ha-1 (Anonymous, 2021a). In Andhra Pradesh, it is cultivated in an area of 0.45 million hectares with a production of 0.55 million tonnes and with a productivity of 1218 kg ha-1 (Anonymous, 2021b).
Chickpea is generally cultivated as rainfed sole crop and many times it experiences moisture stress during its growth stages that results in low productivity. Many times, the crop is also damaged due to either heavy rainfall or improper irrigation.
Modified land configuration such as furrow irrigated raised bed has shown good promise in enhancing chickpea performance and water productivity (Jat et al., 2005). Raised bed planting prevented excess moisture problem in heavy soils. Chickpea is very sensitive to water logging condition and flatbed sowing results in heavy plant mortality. Sowing the Bengal gram crop on raised bed and ridge and furrow method was found to be advantageous compared to flatbed method of sowing (Ravindra et al., 2016).
Maintenance of optimum plant population is important parameter for enhancing productivity of Bengal gram. Changes in plant geometry and plant population per unit area due to different planting layouts leads to different pattern for utilization of growth resources viz., nutrients, moisture, radiation energy and space. Pairing of rows were more productive than conventional single- row system. Sowing in paired-row has been found advantageous in many rainfed crops. Better root dry weight, greater intercepted photosynthetically active radiation, high leaf photosynthesis and high nutrient uptake are noticed under paired-row than traditional flat-bed method (Mandal et al., 2019). Change in crop geometry keeping the seed rate same is a non-monetary input, that fetches additional yields (Mandal et al., 2019). Hence, the present experiment was proposed to find out the performance of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under different irrigation regimes and sowing beds.
A field trail was carried out at Agricultural College Farm, Mahanadi campus of Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University during rabi 2021-2022. The design adopted was split-plot design and replicated thrice. The main plots consisted of three types of sowing beds viz., Flat bed (45 cm × 10 cm) (P1), Ridge and furrow (45 cm × 10 cm) (P2) and broad bed and furrow in paired rows (60-30 × 10 cm) (P3) assigned to main plots and irrigation levels viz., rainfed (I1), one irrigation
of 30 mm depth at 30 DAS (I2) and two irrigations each of 30 mm depth at 30 and 50 DAS (I3) were allotted to sub plots.
The soil of the experimental field was sandy loam in texture, with neutral in reaction (pH 7.33), low in organic carbon (0.49%), available nitrogen (258 kg ha-1) and available phosphorus (49 kg ha-1) and high in available potassium (584 kg ha-1). Diammonium phosphate (DAP) was applied to the experimental plots @ 125 kg ha-1 as basal to supply N and P2O5 required as per the recommendation. The chickpea variety NBeG-49 having duration of 90-105 days was taken as test variety. The row to row spacing was taken as 45 cm in flatbed and ridge and furrow sowing bed. The spacing adapted for broad bed and furrow was 60 cm between paired rows. The spacing was 60 cm between pairs and 30 cm between paired rows. Plant to plant spacing was 10 cm and gap filling was done at 10 DAS. Pre-emergence application of pendimethalin 1.0 kg ha-1 was sprayed one day after sowing. Observations on plant height, number of branches plant-1, dry matter accumulation, number of pods plant-1, 100 seed weight, seed yield, haulm yield and harvest index were recorded by following standard procedure. The critical difference was correlated at 5 percent level of significance to compare different treatment means as suggested by Panse and Sukhatme (1985).
The growth parameters in chickpea were influenced by different sowing bed methods. The sowing beds didn’t show any significant influence on plant height. But the tall plants were recorded in broad bed and furrow with paired rows than flatbed and ridge and furrows. Significantly higher number of branches were registered with broad bed and furrow with paired rows than flatbed and ridge and furrow. These results are in line with the findings of Archana et al. (2021) and Tomar et al. (2020). Higher dry matter production registered with broad bed and furrow with paired rows than flatbed and ridge and furrow (Table 1). These results are in line with findings of Bharade et al. (2019) and Baraker et al. (2017). It might be due to better soil structure and maintenance of air-water regime as well as good supply of nutrients and water in the root zone of crop, availability of wider spacing, the plant get sufficient space above the ground and below the ground grow as well as increased light
transmission in the canopy, leading to greater vegetative growth which enable high foliage. The irrigation levels found significant effect on growth parameters. Two irrigations each at 30 & 50 DAS found significant influence on plant height and number of branches per plant and dry matter production than One irrigation at 30 DAS and rainfed (Table 1). These results are in line with the findings of Ravindra et al. (2016) and Narendra et al. (2015).
Maximum number of pods plant-1 were recorded in broad bed and furrow with paired row as compared to flatbed and was on par with ridge and furrow (Table 2). It might be due to better root development, greater intercepted photosynthetically active radiation, rate of leaf photosynthesis in turn gave high number of branches, dry matter production, more number of flowers contributed to higher number of pods per plant. These findings were in accordance with the results of Mandal et al. (2019) and Joshi et al. (2018). The effect of sowing beds and irrigation levels on 100 seed weight (g) found non-significant (Table 2). Two irrigations each at 30 & 50 DAS found significant influence on yield attributes like
number of pods per plant than One irrigation at 30 DAS and rainfed (Table 2). These findings were in accordance with the results of Kemal et al. (2018) and Patel et al. (2016).
Significantly highest seed yield (kg ha-1) was recorded with broad bed and furrow with paired rows than flatbed and was at par with ridge and furrow (Table 2). It might be due to more number of branches and good aeration, good drainage and mobilisation of nutrients intensified. The similar findings are in agreement with the results of Shaikh et al. (2019) and Joshi et al. (2018). The sowing beds didn’t show any significant influence on haulm yield. The high haulm yield was recorded with broad bed & furrow with paired rows than flatbed and ridge and furrow (Table 2). Irrigation levels found significant effect on seed and haulm yield. Two irrigations each at 30 and 50 DAS found superior yields than one irrigation at 30 DAS and rainfed conditions. The similar findings in line with Ravindra et al. (2016) and Narendra et. al. (2015). The response of sowing beds and irrigation levels on harvest index was found to be non-significant.
The broad bed and furrow in paired rows (60-30 × 10 cm) (P3) and two irrigations each at 30 and 50 DAS (I3) recorded higher plant height, greater number of branches, dry matter production, number of seeds per plant, maximum seed yield, haulm yield and harvest index as compared to other treatments. Hence, broad bed and furrow in paired rows (60-30 × 10 cm) (P3) and two irrigations each at 30 and 50 DAS (I3) was found superior in recording higher growth parameters and yields of chickpea.
Anonymous. 2021a. http://www.indiastatagri.com. (accessed on 20-12-2021)
Anonymous. 2021b. http://www.apdes.ap.gov.in. (accessed on 20-12-2021).
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