Archives

Pulses are critical and cheapest source of plant based-protein, minerals and vitamins. Pulses contain 20-25 per cent protein, which is nearly twice the protein content of wheat and thrice that of rice. Besides, it is ample source of vit. A (I.U. 316), vit. C (3), vit. K (0.29), thiamine (0.3), ribo-flavin (0.51), nicotinic acid (2.1), biotin (10g/100g), choline (194), folic acid (125g/100g), inositol (240) and pantothenic acid (1.3). Apart from this, pulses have health benefits as it helps in reducing obesity, diabetes and malnutrition etc. In India, chickpea is grown in an area about 106 lakh ha, production is 112 lakh tones and productivity is 1056 kg ha-1.

Chickpea production has increased from 3.65 to 6.33 million tones from 1951 to 2007 with an annual growth rate of 0.58%. In Gujarat, Chickpea is sown in an area of 2.95 million ha with 3.62 million tones production and productivity of 1227 kg ha-1 (Anon., 2018). In India, chickpea is usually sown on flat bed by seed drill. Several research workers have indicated that changing of sowing method provides suitable environment for germination, growth and development, which eventually increase the crop yield. Land configuration system plays an important role in minimizing salinity, soil erosion and improving water use efficiency of field crops. Easy and uniform germination as well as growth and development of plant are provided by changing of sowing method. Chickpea is the most important rabi pulse crop in semi-arid region of India. The risk involved in growing chickpea by farmers are that the low rainfall period, proves to be insufficient in providing enough residual moisture during the growth period for sustain the crop yield of chickpea. The yield reduction of chickpea is due to the shorter period available for crop growth and increase incidence of terminal drought (Anon., 2003). Irrigation also plays a vital role in not only increasing the productivity of chickpea, but also improving the physico-chemical properties of soil. Under irrigated condition, crop may sometimes make vigorous vegetative growth adversely affecting the development of reproductive parts. In chickpea, there is a strong apical dominance, so many authors was believed that shoot apex/ apical meristem produce auxin, which inhibits the axillary buds into actively growing shoots. When the apical meristem/bud is detached, the cytokinins are able to promote the growth of lateral buds into branches (Campbell et al., 2008). More branches will possibly initiate more flower buds and possibly more yield.  Hence, experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of land configuration, irrigation levels and nipping on growth, yield and economics of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under mild winter of South Gujarat.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

An experiment was carried out during rabi season of 2018-19 at soil and water management research unit (SWMRU), Navsari agricultural university, Navsari, Gujarat. The experiment was laid out in split-split plot design with twenty four treatment combinations having three land configuration treatment in main plot (L1: Flat bed, L2: Ridge and furrow and L3: Raised bed), four irrigation levels in sub plot (I1: 20 DAS, I2: 20 & 40 DAS, I3: 20, 40 & 60 DAS and I4: 20, 40, 60 & 80 DAS) and two nipping levels (N0: Non-nipping N1: Nipping at 25 DAS) in sub-sub plot with four replications. Chickpea variety GJG-3 was sown at the rate of 60 kg ha-1 with the recommended rate of fertilizers were 20:40:00 kg NPK ha-1 and source of fertilizer urea and SSP, respectively and they were applied as bas basal fertilizer. One hand weeding was done at 25 DAS sowing. The soil of the farm alkaline in reaction, medium in organic carbon and low, medium and high in available N, P and K. Growth and yield parameters were recorded at various stages of crop and at harvest. Data were analyzed statistically through ANOVA technique as given by Panse and Sukhatme (1967). Water use efficiency was calculated by this given formula:

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Effect of land configuration
The plant height (42.1 cm) and number of branches per plant (16.9) at harvest were significantly more with raised bed method of sowing as compared to flat bed method (40.2 cm and 12.2), respectively. However, ridge and furrow was found at par with higher treatment in plant height. It is attributed due to better soil structure and maintenance of air-water regime as well as good supply of nutrient and water in the root zone of crop. Similar results also recorded with Gethe et al. (2016), Patel et al. (2016) in chickpea crop and Babazoi et al. (2019) in black eyed bean (cowpea) under raised bed.
Yield and yield attribute i.e. pods per plant was significantly higher under raised bed method sowing. The data indicates that land configuration favorably effect on chickpea crop in terms of plant population, growth and yield attributes under raised bed method of sowing had resulted in to significantly higher seed yield. Data observed that raised bed method of sowing recorded higher grain yield. The increase in grain and stover yield under raised bed method of sowing was to the extent of 42.36 and 24.25 per cent, respectively over flat bed method. Singh et al. (2010), Chourasiya et al. (2016). Whereas, harvest index and protein content was not influenced by different land configuration treatments. Maximum water use efficiency and economics was noticed under raised bed treatments compared to flat bed. This might be due to more yields produced under raised bed sowing. Similar results obtained in the present investigation are in agreement with Singh et al. (2008), Mishra et al. (2012), Yadav and Singh (2014) and Kumar et al. (2015).
Effect of irrigation
Growth and yield parameters was significantly higher under application of irrigation at 20, 40, 60 and 80 DAS due to optimum moisture supply promoted the cell division and cell elongation and ultimately increased plant growth and photosynthetic activity which enable the plant to intercept more amount of radiant energy and directly higher number of branches per plant due to optimum supply of moisture in the root zone there by more nutrients uptake and translocation, which ultimately linked with the growth and yield of plant. Similar results are also supported by Mustafa et al. (2008) and Mondal et al. (2012), Yagmur and Kaydan (2011) and Razzak et al. (2014). Harvest index and protein content did not affected by the effect of irrigation, in case of water use efficiency obtained higher with irrigation given at 20, 40, 60 and 80 DAS. Higher gross returns, net returns and B:C were calculated under same treatment. This was due to higher grain and stover yield under this treatment, ultimately observed in net return and BC ratio. Similar results were also obtained by Chourasiya et al. (2016) and Singh, (2017).
Effect of nipping
Nipping at 25 DAS, recorded remarkably higher number of branches per plant, pods per plant, grain yield, stover yield, gross returns, net returns and B:C ratio, whereas, more plant height was found under non-nipping treatment. The same treatment also noticed higher water use efficiency.
The increase in number of branches with nipping might be due to removal of apical portion of main shoot resulted in more secondary branches because distribution of carbohydrate towards the lateral auxiliary buds below nipped portion. Nipping also activated the dormant lateral buds to produce more number of secondary branches. In chickpea plants, the development of axillary buds is inhibited normally by Indole Acetic Acid produced in the apical portion of plant. If the source of auxin is removed by removing the apical meristem, the lateral branching gets activated and accelerated and resulted in more branches per plant. These results are in accordance with the findings of Adinde et al. (2016), Dhaka et al. (2018) and Vasanthan et al. (2019).
Interaction effect
Interaction effect of L×I×N on pods per plant was found significant. Remarkably higher pods per plant recorded under raised bed, irrigation at 20, 40, 60 and 80 DAS and nipping at 25 DAS over other treatment combinations. This is due to the combined effect of all three treatments, land configuration, irrigation and nipping.

CONCLUSION

It was concluded from the field experiment that crop planted on raised bed method, irrigation with 20, 40, 60 and 80 DAS with nipping at 25 DAS gives higher yield and economically more feasible.

 

REFERENCES

Adinde, J. O., Uche, O. J., Anieke, U. J., Ukwuani, C. M., Agu, C. J., Nwankwo, O. G., & Ugwuanyi, P. O. (2016). Effect of nipping on growth and yield of green bell pepper (Capsicum annum L. cv goliath) in iwollo, south–eastern Nigeria. International Journal Science and Nature 7(2), 423-428.
Anonymous (2003). Annual Report All India coordinated project on chickpea, IIPR, Kanpur.
Anonymous (2018). Agriculture statistics at a glance (2018). Ministry of Agriculture. Govt. of India.
Babazoi, F., Shivay, Y. S., Bana, R. S., & Sharifi, S. (2019). Effect of crop establishment methods and phosphorus levels on productivity and profitability of black-eyed bean (Vigna unguiculata) in semi-arid region of Afganistan. Indian Journal of Agronomy 64(1), 142-145.
Campbell, N. A., Reece J. B., Urry L. A., Cain M. L., Wasserman S. A., Minorsky P. V., & Jackson R. B. (2008). Biology (8th ed.) Pearson Benjamin Cumming. San Francisco and London: pp. 827-830.
Chourasiya, A., Naik, K. R., Chauhan, A., & Das, S. (2016). Impact of land configurations, irrigation scheduling and weed management on yield and economics of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). International Journal of Agriculture Sciences 51(8), 2180-2182.
Dhaka, A. K., Kumar, S., Singh, B., Singh, K., Kumar, A., & Kumar, N. (2018). Nitrogen use efficiency, economic return and yield performance of Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] as influenced by nipping and fertility levels. Legume Research 15(2), 1-6.
Gethe, R. M., Hasure, R. R., Najan, B. R., Jadhav, J. D., & Tagad, L. N. (2016). Effect of land configurations and irrigation scheduling growth and yield of chickpea. Contemporary Research in India 7(3), 33-36.
Kumar, N., Singh, M. K., Praharaj, C. S., Singh, U., & Singh, S. S. (2015). Performance of chickpea under different planting method, seed rate and irrigation level in Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Journal of Food Legumes 28(1), 40-44.
Mondal, C., Bandopadhyay, P., Alipatra, A., & Banerjee, H. (2012). Performance of summer mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] under different irrigation regimes and boron levels. Journal of Food Legumes 25(1), 37-40.
Mustafa, M. N., Karuna Sagar, G., Chandrika. V., & Reddy, P. M. (2008). Growth and yield of chickpea as influenced by irrigation and nutrient management. Legume Research 31(3), 221-223.
Panse, V. G., & Sukhatme, P. V. (1967). Statistical Methods for Agricultural Workers. ICAR, New Delhi. pp. 187-197.
Patel, H. H., Thanki, J. D., Patel, T. U., Patel, D. D., & Patel, P. S. (2016). Performance of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under planting techniques and irrigation levels. International Journal of Applied and pure science and agriculture 2(1), 55-60.
Razzak, M. D., Bahadur, M. M., Hafiz, M. H. R., Bala, R., Haque, A., Sadat, A., & Aza, A. K. (2014). Irrigation levels influenced on morphophysiological characters of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L). International Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural Research 5(4), 65-75.
Singh, K. P., Hari Ram S. K., & Sonkar, P. R. (2008). Effect of sowing techniques and irrigation methods on yield, yield attributes, net profit and water use efficiency of late sown chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.).  Plant Archives 8(2), 711-712.
Singh, V. K., Dwivedi, B. S., Shukla, A. K., & Mishra, R. P. (2010). Permanent raised bed planting of the pigeonpea-wheat system on a Typic Ustochrept: Effects on soil fertility, yield, and water and nutrient use efficiencies. Field Crops Research 116(1-2), 127-39.
Vasanthan, V., Geetha, R., Menaka, C., Vakeswaran, V., & Parameswari, C. (2019).  Study on effect of nipping and foliar spray on seed yield of sesame var. TMV 7. International Journal of Chemical Studies 7(3), 4180-4183.
Yadav, S., & Singh, B. N. (2014). Effect of irrigation schedules and planting methods on yield, attributes and economics of greengram (Phaseolus radiate L.) under rice-wheat-greengram cropping system. Plant Archives 14(1), 521-523.

Yagmur, M., & Kaydan, D. (2011). Plant growth and protein ratio of spring sown chickpea with various combinations of rhizobium inoculation, nitrogen fertilizer and irrigation under rainfed condition. African Journal of Agricultural Research 6(12), 2648-2654.