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Research Article
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Effect of Farmyard Manure, Vermicompost and Chemical Nutrients on Growth and Yield of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) |
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Guriqbal Singh,
H.S. Sekhon
and
Harpreet Kaur
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ABSTRACT
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Adequate and balanced nutrition is essential for obtaining high grain yields. The aim of the study was to find out proper nutrient management in chickpea using different sources of nutrients. Two field experiments were conducted to study the effects of Farmyard manure (FYM), phosphorus, zinc sulphate, vermicompost and nitrogen+phosphorus application on the growth and yield of chickpea. On the basis of three-year mean, as compared to no application of nutrients, the application of 5 t FYM ha-1 improved chickpea grain yield by 14.89%, 30 and 60 kg P2O5 ha-1 by 14.81 and 21.85% and 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1 by 5.18%. Chickpea grain yield increased with successive increase in dose of vermicompost from 0 to 3 and 2 t ha-1 seemed to be the optimum dose. Applications of 10 kg N + 20 kg P2O5 ha-1 and 20 kg N + 40 kg P2O5 ha-1 increased the grain yield by 18.97 and 24.20%, respectively over no application of nitrogen and phosphorus. Increase in grain yield with the application of various nutrients was due to improvement in plant growth and yield attributes. The study highlights the importance of using nutrients through various sources for realizing high productivity of chickpea.
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Received: November 22, 2011;
Accepted: January 14, 2012;
Published: March 21, 2012
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INTRODUCTION
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important grain legume crop in the
world which was globally grown on 11.55 million ha area with total production
of 10.46 million tonnes during 2009 (http://faostat.fao.org).
India, Pakistan, Turkey, Australia, Myanmar and Ethiopia are the major chickpea
producing countries. Chickpea, almost in all regions, is grown on marginal soils
and the good soils are used for growing other more favoured crops. With the
result, the productivity of chickpea is very low. Chickpea productivity is influenced
by many factors including sowing time (Valimohammadi
et al., 2007), Rhizobium inoculation (Parveen
et al., 1999; Yadav et al., 2011),
plant population (Ali et al., 1999), moisture
stress (Khamssi, 2011), seed priming (Ghassemi-Golezani
et al., 2008), etc. For obtaining high grain yields proper management
of the crop is a must and proper nutrient management is one of the important
factors contributing towards high productivity. Though chickpea, being a grain
legume, is capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen, a starter dose of nitrogen
is essential for proper growth and development of the plant. Chickpea grain
yields are known to improve with the application of nitrogen (Namvar
et al., 2011; Yagmur and Kaydan, 2011). Phosphorus
plays an important role in nodulation, nitrogen fixation, growth and yield of
chickpea (Meena et al., 2002, 2005;
Jat and Ahlawat, 2006; Singh et
al., 2010). Application of 20 kg N+20 kg P2O5
ha-1 or 20 kg N + 40 kg P2O5 ha-1 (Devi
and Singh, 2005) improve chickpea yields considerably.
In some soils deficiency of many micronutrients is becoming an alarming problem
for sustainable agriculture. In case only the major nutrients, such as nitrogen
and phosphorus, are supplied to the crop through straight or complex chemical
fertilizers only, the deficiency of some other major, secondary and micronutrients
is bound to appear in various crops. Therefore, those sources of nutrients should
be used which supply the plants various nutrients. This will help not only in
obtaining high crop yields but also maintain soil fertility over a long run.
Such sources of nutrients could be farmyard manure and vermicompost, as both
these organic manures contain fairly good amount of various nutrients essential
for proper growth and development of the plant. Both organic and inorganic sources
of nutrients can be used in chickpea (Tolanur and Badanur,
2003; Karande et al., 2006; Gawai
and Pawar, 2006).
There was, therefore, a need to study the effect of nutrient application through various sources on the productivity of chickpea. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of application of farmyard manure, vermicompost and chemical fertilizers in chickpea.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Site characterization: Two field experiments were conducted during rabi
(winter) of 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02 at the research farm of the Punjab
Agricultural University Ludhiana (30° 56'N, 75° 52'E, altitude 247 m),
India under irrigated conditions. The soil of the experimental field was loamy
sand, having pH 8.2, organic carbon 0.30%, P 15.1 kg ha-1 and K 275
kg ha-1. Meteorological data pertaining to the crop growing season
are presented in Table 1.
Treatments and experimental design: Experiment 1 comprised of 12 treatments i.e., all combinations of two levels of farmyard manure (0 and 5 t ha-1), three levels of phosphorus (0, 30 and 60 kg P2O5 ha-1) and two levels of zinc sulphate (0 and 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1). The experiment was conducted in a factorial randomized block design with three replications. Phosphorus was supplied through single super phosphate (16% P2O5). All treatments received uniform dose of nitrogen and sulphur. All nutrient sources were applied at the time of sowing.
Experiment 2 comprised of 3/4 levels of vermicompost (1, 2 and 3 t ha-1
in 1999-2000 and 0, 1, 2 and 3 t ha-1 in 2000-01 and 2001-02) and
three levels of nutrients (0 kg N+0 kg P2O5 ha-1,
10 kg N+20 kg P2O5 ha-1 and 20 kg N+40 kg P2O5
ha-1).
Table 1: |
Monthly meteorological data during Rabi 1999-2000 to 2001-02 |
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All treatment combinations were allocated in a factorial randomized block design
with three replications. Nitrogen and phosphorus were supplied through urea
(46% N) and single super phosphate (16% P2O5). All treatments
received uniform dose of sulphur.
Crop husbandry: Pre-sowing irrigation was applied and at proper moisture conditions seedbed was prepared by cultivating the field two times followed by planking. Sowing was done during the first week of November in 1999, 2000 and 2001 using 45 kg seed rate ha-1. Variety PBG 1 was sown in rows 30 cm apart. Weeds were controlled by two hand weedings performed about 30 and 60 days after sowing. Irrigation was applied as per the need. Recommended fungicides and insecticides were sprayed against diseases and insect pests. The crop was harvested and threshed manually. Observations recorded: In both the experiments, at maturity, data on plant height, branches plant-1 and pods plant-1 were recorded from five randomly selected plants. From the total produce of each plot, 100 seeds were counted to record data on 100-seed weight. Grain yield data were recorded whole plot basis.
Statistical analysis: All data were subjected to analysis of variance
as per the standard procedure and least significant difference values were calculated
at 5% significance level whenever the F-ratio was found to be significant.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In Experiment 1, the application of 5 t FYM ha-1 improved the plant
growth and yield attributes (Table 2) either numerically or
significantly and increased grain yield significantly (Table 3)
over no application of FYM. On three-year mean basis, application of 5 t FYM
ha-1 improved chickpea grain yield by 14.89% over no application
of FYM (Table 3). Other researchers (Devi
and Singh, 2005; Prasad et al., 2005; Singh
et al., 2010) also reported beneficial effect of FYM on chickpea
productivity.
Table 2: |
Plant growth and yield attributes of chickpea as influenced
by the application of farmyard manure, phosphorus and zinc sulphate |
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Table 3: |
Grain yield of chickpea as influenced by the application
of farmyard manure, phosphorus and zinc sulphate |
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Similarly, phosphorus application improved all these parameters either numerically
or significantly and the values were higher with the use of 60 kg P2O5
ha-1 than with 30 kg P2O5 ha-1 which
in turn were higher than with 0 kg P2O5 ha-1
. Application of 30 and 60 kg P2O5 ha-1 increased
the grain yield by 14.81 and 21.85% over no application of phosphorus. Other
researchers (Meena et al., 2005; Jat
and Ahlawat, 2006; Singh et al., 2010) also
highlighted the role of phosphorus in improving the grain yield of chickpea,
whereas Kayan and Adak (2006) did not find beneficial
effect of phosphorus application in chickpea. Dry matter yield of chickpea is
improved with phosphorus fertilization (Islam et al.,
2001). The application of 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1 increased
grain yield significantly over no application of zinc sulphate in one out of
three years of experimentation only (Table 3). Other researchers
(Akay, 2011) also reported non-significant increase
in chickpea grain yield with zinc application.
In Experiment 2, the application of vermicompost improved plant growth and
yield attributes (Table 4) and grain yield (Table
5) significantly or numerically. In general, these parameters tended to
increase with the increase in the dose of vermicompost. As the dose of vermicompost
increased, grain yield of chickpea also improved. However, vermicompost @ 2
t ha-1 seemed to be the optimum. Other researchers (Devi
and Singh, 2005; Jat and Ahlawat, 2006; Sinha
et al., 2010) also reported beneficial effect of vermicompost on
the growth and yield of chickpea. Nitrogen and phosphorus applications influenced
plant growth, yield attributes and grain yield of chickpea, which were higher
with higher dose of nutrients. On mean basis, application of 10 kg N+20 kg P2O5
ha-1 and 20 kg N+40 kg P2O5 ha-1
increased grain yield of chickpea by 18.97 and 24.20%, respectively over no
application of nitrogen and phosphorus. Application of 20 kg N+20 kg P2O5
ha-1 or 20 kg N+40 kg P2O5 ha-1
is known to improve yield in chickpea (Devi and Singh, 2005).
Mineral nitrogen increases water use efficiency in chickpea (Bahavar
et al., 2009) and therefore, apart from supplying nutrition it could
benefit the crop indirectly also.
In both the experiments, grain yields of chickpea were higher in 2000-01 than
in 1999-2000 or 2001-02 (Table 3 and 5)
which could possibly be due to differences in meteorological conditions (Table
1). Adequate moisture helps in improving the plant growth and grain yield
not only by providing the required water for normal growth of the plant but
also improving the availability and consequently uptake of nutrients by the
plant.
Table 4: |
Effect of vermicompost and chemical nutrients on plant growth
and yield attributes of chickpea |
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Table 5: |
Effect of vermicompost and chemical nutrients on grain yield
of chickpea |
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Increase in grain yield of chickpea with the application of various nutrients
could be due to improvement in plant growth and yield attributes. Some yield
attributes such as pods plant-1 (Khan and Qureshi,
2001; Mishra et al., 2002; Noor
et al., 2003; Ciftci et al., 2004),
seeds pod-1 (Ciftci et al., 2004) and
100-seed weight (Noor et al., 2003) are known
to have positive direct effect on the grain yield of chickpea. Apart from chemical
nutrients, the other sources such as farmyard manure and vermicompost should
be used as these have residual beneficial effects on the succeeding crops also
(Jamwal, 2006). Balanced nutrition may not only help
in maintaining soil fertility but also ensure sustainable agriculture in the
long run which is essential in various parts of the world for feeding the ever
growing human population.
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