Effects of Mesorhizobium inoculation and fertilizer application on yield and yield components of rainfed chickpea

In order to evaluate the efficiency of inoculation of chickpea seeds with Mesorhizobium and application of nitrogen and zinc on yield and yield components of rainfed chickpea an experiment was carried out in research station of Shirvan-Chardavel, Ilam. The experiment was conducted in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with six treatments including Mesorhizobium inoculation, nitrogen (40 kg.ha-1 from urea source), zinc (25 kg.ha-1 from zinc sulphate source), nitrogen+zinc, inoculation+zinc application and the control (no inoculation or fertilizer application) with four replications. Differences of grain and biological yield among treatments were significant (p<0.01). Inoculation and application of 25 kg.ha-1 zinc sulfate resulted in the highest grain and biological yield (with 48.7% and 34.7% increase compared to control, respectively). Increases of number of pods per plant and 100 seed weight in those treatments compared to control were 50% and 6.5%, respectively. Increase of grain yield mostly was related to increase of number of pods per plant. Differences between treatments for nitrogen uptake and nitrogen content were also significant (p<0.01). The highest nitrogen uptake observed in treatment of integrated nitrogen and zinc application, a 74.3% increase as compared to control. Differences between treatments in cases of grain protein and zinc concentration were also significant (p<0.01). Integrated nitrogen and zinc application and control showed the highest and lowest grain protein content (23.1% and 19.4%, respectively). The highest zinc fortification of grain was obtained by zinc sulphate and integrated inoculation and zinc sulphate application.