Study effect of sowing dates on quantitative and qualitative yield of chickpea cultivars under dryland condition

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the oldest of legume species that was identified in the Middle East about 7,500 years ago. This crop had an important role for human nutrition as source of protein, energy, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Among the different agronomic practices, sowing time is the most important factor to achieving chickpea optimum yield. Chickpea Optimum sowing date is different from a cultivar to another and also from a region to another, due to agro-ecological conditions. Winter sowing is a kind of sowing date that is successful in terms of agronomic condition. In order to study of effect of different sowing dates on quantitative and qualitative yield of chickpea under dryland condition, an experiment was conducted.

This experiment was done at the Agricultural Research Station Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bu-Ali Sina, Hamedan, Iran (latitude 35◦1' N, longitude 48◦31' E and 1690 m altitude). The long-term average (30 years) of region air temperature is 12.5 ° C. The long-term average of air temperature during region growing season is 22˚C. The experiment was done during 2012 and 2013 growing seasons. Sowing dates in four level, including 10 January, 10 February, 10 March and 9 April of both years were as main plot, and three chickpea cultivar, including Hashem, Arman and Azad were as subplot. In this study was evaluated yield component, biological and grain yield, protein percent and protein yield and root nud number.

Results showed that the effect of year on chickpea experimental properties was not significant, but the all of the evaluated traits were affected by sowing dates significantly. The highest rates of total dry matter, grain protein percent, grain yield and protein yield (772.33 g m-2 and %25.85, 236.16 and 61.05 g m-2, respectively) was belonged to first sowing date (10 January) and Hashem cultivar. Also, the lowest total dry matter, grain protein percent, grain yield and protein yield (444.90 g m-2 and %22.17, 75.91 and 16.83 g m-2, respectively) was achieved at last sowing date (9 April) and Azad cultivar. The highest and lowest plant height, first sheath height, leaf area index and root nud number was achieved at the first sowing date (10 January) and final sowing date (9 April), respectively, that traits values at 10 January sowing date were significantly more than other sowing dates.

According to the results of this study, it can be concluded that the winter cropping of chickpea leads to improvement of growth properties and quantitative and qualitative yield of this crop, as by increasing of growth period leads to increasing of grain yield and total dry matter. According to the environmental conditions of the experiment site, the sowing date of 10 January, can be considered as the best sowing date.