Effect of Plant Spacing on Yield and Some Quality Characteristics of Three Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Varieties

Abstract

A field study was conducted at Grdarasha Research Station of the College of Agriculture/Salahaddin University, Erbil, during growing winter season of 2017, to study the effect of plant spacing on some yield and quality of chickpea varieties. The factorial experiment was applied in "Randomized Complete Block Design" (RCBD), in three replicates, by using four plant spacing (6, 9, 12 and 15 cm), and three varieties of chickpea (Rafedain, Gab and TH85) were implemented. The 15 cm plant spacing produced the highest number of primary branches per plant (4.34), number of pods per plant (15.44), seed yield (1124.33 kg/ha), protein percentage (23.12), protein yield (247.19 kg/ha), and oil percentage (11.81). On the contrary, the 6 cm plant spacing recorded the highest value of carbohydrate percentage (60.91); also, Gab variety exceeds Rafedain and TH85 varieties in number of primary branch per plant (4.07), number of pods per plant (11.71), seed yield (1120.91 kg/ha), protein percentage (22.25), and protein yield (250.26 kg/ha), but the TH85 gave the optimum oil percentage (11.14) and carbohydrate percentage (59.84). From the interaction of plant spacing with varieties, the highest rate was recorded at 15 cm plant spacing with Gab variety seed yield (1192.85 kg/ha) and protein yield (297.16 kg/ha). There was a positive and negative correlation between yield and number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod (r = 0.673 and 0.689) and between carbohydrate percentage with protein and oil percentages (r = −0.777 and −0.658), respectively.