Investigating Phosphorous and Zinc Levels on Quantity and Quality Characters of Two Cultivars Chickpea

  Chickpea(Cicer arietinum) is one of the most important Pulses in arid and semi arid regions. This plant needs a lot of nutrition such as phosphorous and Zinc elements. Most of the soil of arid and semi arid regions does not have phosphorous and Zinc nutrition sufficiently.These elements are effective for growth and yield of two chickpea cultivars. On the other hand, increasing one of them decreases the other one in plant; therefore, it is necessity to determine the amount of phosphorous and Zinc fertilizers. The trail was conducted based on factorial split plot in randomization block design with three replications. We considered the two chickpea cultivars(Arman and ILC482) as the main plot and sub plot including phosphorous (P2O5) from super phosphate triple source in three levels (P1=32, P2=46 and P3=60 Kg.ha-1) and different amounts Zn from Zinc solphate source in three levels (Zn1=0, Zn2=2.5 and Zn3= 5Kg.ha-1) in Borujerd Agriculture research station where there are cold winters and humid summers.This experiment was performed in 2004. The result indicated a significant difference between Arman cultivar with seed yield and biological yield 2606 and 4341 Kg.ha-1 respectively and ILC482 cultivar with seed yield and biological yield 1662 and 2779 Kg.ha-1 respectively. Effect of phosphorous fertilizer on seed yield ,biological yield, number of seed per pod and number of main branch was significant and the most difference was obtained with 60 Kg.ha-1 P2O5. Effect of Zinc fertilizer on seed yield, biological yield, number of seed per pod, number of pod per plant, and number of main branch was significant and the most was obtained with 5 Kg.ha-1 Zn. The most amount of protein in seed was obtained with 60 Kg.ha-1 P2O5 and 5 Kg.ha-1Zn (P3Zn3 treatments). There are a negative correlation between amount of phosphorous consumption and Zn concentration in seed and amount of Zn consumption and P concentration in seed. Phosphorous and Zinc fertilizers are effective in root extention and decrease of pH in arid regions soils respectively. Therefore these fertilizers increase water absorption and nutrition elements including Phosphorous and Zinc in soil. In this experiment, Chickpea have positive response to application of phosphorous and Zinc fertilizers and consumption of these fertilizers, increase quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Chickpea. Therefore using 60 Kg.ha-1 P2O5 and 5 Kg.ha-1 Zn for Chickpea crop in similar regions this in expriment is recommended