Replacement of phosphate fertilizer application by bio-fertilizers in chickpea production under on-farm seed priming conditions

In order to study the effect of on-farm seed priming and two bio-fertilizers on emergence and yield characteristics of chickpea, a factorial experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design in Hamedan with three replications in 2013. The factors consisted of phosphate fertilizer (0, 50 and 100 percent of recommended) bio-fertilizer (mycorrhizae, Barvar2, both of them and no-application) and priming (priming and no-priming). Results showed that priming increased emergence percent by 7.7 and emergence rate by 20.7 in conjunction with mycorrhizae and 100% phosphate fertilizer compared to no-primed, no-phosphate and no bio-fertilizer. Highest biological and grain yield were respectively 849 and 303 g.m-2 that produced by primed seeds with application of two bio-fertilizers simultaneously at 100 and 50% of phosphate recommendation respectively that were 146 and 250 percent more compared to their controls in own phosphate fertilizer levels. In this study, the highest harvest index, number of pods and seeds per square meter were achieved in priming treatment with application of two bio-fertilizers simultaneously and phosphate fertilizer consumption of 50% recommended.