Effect of Vermicompost, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Fertilizers on Yield and Yield Components of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Cultivars under Terminal Drought Stress

In order to evaluate the effect of vermicompost, nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers on yield and yield components of four chickpea cultivars under terminal drought stress, a field experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Station of Faculty of Agriculture, Bu-Ali Sina, university during 2014 growth season. Experiment was designed as split factorial based on randomized complete block design with three replications. Irrigation treatment inclued two levels, without drought stress (full irrigation) and drought stress at podding stage (terminal drought) in main plots and fertilizer treatments including four levels (100 percent of vermicompost, 100 percent of chemical fertilizer, 50 percent of chemical fertilizer + 50 Percent of vermicompost and Without fertilizer) and four chickpea cultivars (Bivanig, Arman, Azad, Hashem) were used in sub-plots. The result showed that interaction between irrigation and cultivar was significantly in the number of pods per plant, economic yield, biological yield and harvest index. Also all studied traits were significantly affected by interaction between irrigation and fertilizer. Drought stress at podding stage decreased grain yield of Hashem, Arman, Azad and Bivanig cultivars about 41, 43, 37 and 33.7 percent, respectively. At the podding stage steress, application of 50 percent of chemical fertilizer + 50 percent of vermicompost increased number of pods per plant, 1000 grain weight, seed yield, biological yield and harvest index about 20, 19, 47.6, 23.8 and 16 psercent respectively under stress condition. It’s notable that application of 100 percent of vermicompost improved above-mentioned traits by about by 29.7, 14.5, 39, 20 and 4.8 percent respectively. According to results, in all cultivars especially Hashem using 50 percent of chemical fertilizer + 50 percent of vermicompost for enhancing chickpea under full irrigation and drought stress at podding stage is recommended.