Investigation on the Use of Shallow Groundwater by Legumes Plants (Evidence by Examining two Chickpea Cultivars) in Semi-Arid Climate

Shallow groundwater is a resource that provides and meets the high amounts of plant’s needed water in the conditions of optimal management. In this research the effect of using different shallow water table (60, 80 and 110 cm) depths on production of two chickpea cultivars namely (Azad and Bivanij) in two years from 2013 to 2014 was investigated. During study, no surface irrigation was used and only water to the plant through different shallow groundwater levels was supplied using capillary rise. The research was carried out in the lysimeteric station located in Campus of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Razi University. All treatments were carried out in a complete randomized design based on the factorial manner experiment. Groundwater for all treatments was supplied by Marriott siphon, by daily recording. The results showed that, in both years of the study, the highest and lowest groundwater contribution was belonging to depths of 60with 65% and 110 cm depths with 22% groundwater contribution respectively. The results also showed that by increasing groundwater depth the percentage of groundwater contribution decreased. Additionally, the results showed that maximum and minimum water use efficiency, based on seed yield was belong to Azad cultivars for water table depths of 110 and 60 cm respectively. Moreover, during the first and second years of the study, the highest and lowest grain yield was belonging to Azad cultivar with water table depth 80 and 60 cm respectively.