Growth dynamics and temperature sensitivity of late planting chickpea under Delhi conditions

Abstract

A field study was conducted to analyze the growth dynamics and temperature sensitivity of late planted chickpea following three staggered sowings viz. late October (S1), late November (S2) and mid December (S3) with selected promising genotypes. Late sown chickpea crops (S2 and S3) experienced ~13.4 °C average daily mean temperature during vegetative stage compared with normal sown crop (S1 with ~17.1 °C average daily mean temperature). On the other hand, average daily mean temperature at mid-flowering to podding stage ranged between ~14.6 to 21.2 °C and ~20.4 to 25.1 °C, respectively for S2 and S3 sown crops. Low temperature during vegetative growth resulted in poor growth, reduced shoot biomass production and seed yield in S2 and S3 sown crops compared with normal sowing (S1). Lower biomass production was associated with yield reductions up to ~27 and ~53 % in S2 and S3 sowings, respectively compared with S1 in all the genotypes. The study concludes that late sown chickpea crop is more vulnerable to low temperature stress during vegetative apart from high temperature stress at flowering and podding stages under Delhi conditions.