Effects of supplemental irrigation and foliar application of zinc on yield and yield components of chickpea

Subject Areas : Journal of Plant Ecophysiology

M. Armin ¹ (استادیار دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد سبزوار)
M. Bidi ² (دانش آموخته کارشناسی ارشد دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد سبزوار)

Received: 2014-11-03 Accepted : 2014-11-03 Published : 2014-11-01

Keywords: Drought stress, foliar application, Micronutrients, Supplementary irrigation,

Abstract :

To investigate the effects of supplemental irrigation and foliar application of zinc on yield and yield components of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), an experiment was conducted during the 2011-2012 in Sabzevar, Iran. Treatments were supplemental irrigation time (dry farming without irrigation, irrigation at flowering, irrigation at pod formation, irrigation at both flowering and pod formation) as main plot and time of Zinc foliar application with 2% concentration (control, foliar application at vegetative, foliar application at flowering and foliar application at both vegetative and flowering) as sub plot in a split block experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replicates. Results showed that supplemental irrigation at both flowering and poding had significantly higher grain yield (49.57 g m-2), biological yield (65.04 g m-2 ), pod number in plant (24.84) and height (27 cm) compared to other irrigation regimes, whereas thousand grain weight had not response to supplemental irrigation. Yield and yield components had different responses to zinc foliar application. Although Zinc foliar application at both vegetative and flowering stages had the highest economic yield (47.44 g m-2), biological yield (65.59 g m-2), and seed per plant (26.65), Zinc foliar application at flowering stage increased 1000 grain weight (173.7 g). Overall, supplemental irrigation at both flowering and poding with zinc foliar application at both vegetative and flowering stages was a suitable treatment to achieve maximum yield in Sabzevar conditions.