Agro-qualitative response of two cultivars of chickpea to different sowing techniques under irrigated conditions of Faisalabad

Article history: Received: 03 Nov., 2010 Accepted: 23 Dec., 2010 Grain legume production depends a lot upon the sowing techniques and the cultivars with greater potentional. A field experiment to evaluate the effect of different sowing methods on yield and quality of two chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars was conducted at Agronomy Research Farm, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, during the rabi season 2009. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (factorial arrangement) with four replications. Two chickpea cultivars Punjab 2008 (Desi) and Noor 2009 (Kabuli) were sown with hand drill in three sowing methods i.e. flat sowing, ridge sowing and bed sowing at 30 cm apart rows using a seed rate of 40 kg ha -1 . Significant differences were observed among sowing methods and chickpea cultivars for yield and quality parameters. With bed sowing method the chickpea cultivar Punjab 2008 produced greater number of pods per plant (81.49), number of grains per plant (98.49), grain yield (4.74 t ha -1 ), biological yield (10.77 t ha -1 ), harvest index (43.26 %) and crude protein (23.06 %) against noor 2009.The study indicates that for obtaining higher yield of chickpea of good quality, the cultivar Punjab 2008 should be sown on beds by using seed rate of 40 kg ha -1 under agro-climatic conditions of Faisalabad.