Effect of false seedbed and application of organic fertilizer on yield, yield components and biomass of weeds in dryland chickpea

In order to investigate the effect of seed bed and organic fertilizers on the yield and yield components of chickpea and weeds, an experiment was conducted in the form of complete randomized designs with 3 replications in Chardavol Agricultural Research Station in 2019. Treatments include the usual bed and false seed bed as main plots and chickpea plant feeding at four levels (no fertilizer application, animal manure, humus fertilizer, and compost at a rate of 10 t/ha) as sub-plots. The results showed that the effect of cultivation types treatment on yield and seed, number of seeds per pod, number of pods per plant, and plant height was significant. Also, organic fertilizers had a significant effect on grain yield, number of seeds per pod, number of pods per plant, grain weight, and plant height. The interaction between seed bed and organic fertilizers was significant on yield at 5% level and on the number of pods per plant at 1% level. The highest number of seeds per pod, maximum grain weight, and highest grain yield of chickpea are obtained with 1 seed per pod, 36 g and 720 g in compost fertilizer treatment, respectively. The total weed density in the dryland chickpea field was up to 10% lower under false seed bed treatment. False seed bed was well able to control the weeds of dryland chickpea and the best fertilizer in terms of weed management and improving chickpea yield was compost.