Effect of herbicides on growth attributes of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Introduction

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) popularly known as "Gram" or "Bengal gram" is most important and premier pulse crop of India. Chickpea has been well recognized as a valuable source of protein particularly in the developing countries where majority of the population depends on the low-priced food for meeting its dietary requirements. Its magnitude of significance is more among Indians due to their reliance on vegetarian diets besides limited buying capacity of more than 200-250 million (27%) people living below the poverty line. like any other pulses, supplementation of chickpea with cereal based diets is considered one of the possible solutions to the problems associated with protein energy malnutrition (PEM). The daily availability of 14 gm chickpea is source of approximately 2.3% (56 K cal.) energy and 4.7% (2.7 gm) protein to Indian population besides being a major source of calcium and iron (10-12%). Chickpea is the third most important grain legume in the world after dry beans and dry peas at global level. Its cultivation is mainly confined to Asia with 90% of the global area and production. Besides Asia, it is also grown in North and Central America, the Mediterranean region, the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region and Eastern Africa Recently, the crop has expanded in new niches such as Australia and Canada. Among the pulse, the chickpea is a first important Rabi pulse crop of the region. In 2016-2017 estimated area and production of Chickpea in India is 9.90 million ha and 9.12 million tone. The productivity is 969 kg /ha (2016-2017). In 2017-2018 estimated area and production of Chickpea in Maharashtra is 19.88 lakh ha and 18.81 lakh tone. In Maharashtra, highest chickpea crop is grown on 19.29 lakh ha with the highest production of 19.41 lakh tones (2016-2017). The productivity is also highest during 2016-2017 (1006 kg/ha). Percentage of area increased during this year as compared to previous year is 10.8% of India and 2.96% area in Maharashtra respectively. Maharashtra is having 14.69% contribution in the area with 13.74% production share of the nation (average of last ten years). Weeds effect on growth, yield and quality of crop plants and reduce the soil fertility, available soil moisture and nutrients and also compete for space and sunlight with the crop plants. Weeds pose severe competition to chickpea crop under rainfed as well as irrigated conditions. Losses in seed yield due to weeds have been estimated 40-87% ( [5,1,7,6] in view of this present investigation was carried out to study performance of herbicides in chickpea,

Material and Methods

The present field experiment was conducted during Rabi season of 2018-19 at the Experimental Farm of Agronomy at Agriculture Research Station, Badnapur, Jalna (Maharashtra), Vasantrao Naik Marathawada Krishi Vidyapeeth Parbhani. The initial soil sample analysis the experimental plot was clayey in texture, moderate in available nitrogen (180.36 kg ha -1 ), low in available phosphorus (14.36 kg ha -1 ), high in available potassium (460.59 kg ha -1) . The soil was slightly alkaline in reaction (7.96 pH). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications. The treatments were ( Sowing was done by dibbling. The gross and net plot size was 3.60 x 6.20 m and 3.0 x 5.8 m respectively. The recommended dose of fertilizer was 25:50:00 kg NPK ha -1 applied as per treatments through Urea and SSP. Other cultural practices were done as per treatments. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out by using standard analysis of variance (Panse and Sukhatme 1967) [3] .

Results and Discussion

Effect of herbicides on growth of chickpea

The results regarding plant height, number of branches plant -1 and total dry matter production plant -1 of chickpea were presented in table 1. Weed free plot (T 9 ) recorded significantly more plant height (44.80), however, it was at par with pendimethalin 38.7 CS @ 1 kg ha -1 + one hoeing (T 3 ) , (T 6 ) Pendimethalin 30 EC + Imaze 2% @ 1 kg ha -1 + one hoeing at 30-35 DAS, (T 1 ) Pendimethalin 30 EC @ 1 kg ha -1 + one hoeing at 25DAS -30DAS .The lowest plant height, number of branches plant -1 and dry matter production plant -1 were observed in (T 10 ) weed check treatment. Similar results reported by Rathod P.S. et al. (2017) [4] Kaushik et al. (2014) [2] .

Conclusion

The study on the impact of herbicides on chickpea growth revealed that weed management significantly influences the plant's height, number of branches, and dry matter production. Among the treatments, the weed-free plot (T 9 ) showed the best performance, with the highest plant growth, which was statistically at par with Pendimethalin-based treatments combined with hoeing. On the other hand, unchecked weed growth (T 10 ) resulted in the lowest growth parameters. This indicates that effective weed control, particularly through the use of Pendimethalin with hoeing or hand weeding, can substantially enhance chickpea growth and productivity.

References

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