Influence of different irrigation scheduling through micro sprinkler on growth and yield of chickpea

Abstract

A Field experiment entitled, “Influence of different irrigation scheduling through micro-sprinkler on growth and yield of chickpea” was conducted at the farm of All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Pulses Improvement Project, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, Dist. Ahmednagar (M.S.) India during the Rabi season 2017-18. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with six irrigation treatments replicated four times. The treatments were consisting of applying irrigation through micro sprinkler at 0.3, 0.45, 0.6, 0.75 and 0.9 IW/CPE ratio, irrigation at 25 CPE and applying surface irrigation at 50 CPE. The growth in terms of plant height, plant spread, number of branches per plant and dry matter accumulation were observed to be significantly more in treatment of irrigation at 0.9 IW/CPE ratio. However surface irrigation at 50 mm CPE and 0.75 IW/CPE ratio with micro-sprinkler were at par with 0.9 IW/CPE ratio. Similarly, the yield contributing characters viz., weight of pods per plant, weight of seeds per plant, test weight were significantly higher in 0.9 IW/CPE ratio irrigation as compared to other treatments. The grain yield increased with increase in irrigation depth with IW/CPE ratio. The irrigation applied at 0.9 IW/CPE ratio produced significantly superior grain yield (23.35 q ha-1) over other irrigation treatments but the difference with surface irrigation at 50 mm CPE (22.80 q ha-1) and irrigation at 0.75 IW/CPE ratio (21.51 q ha-1) grain yield was not significant. The irrigation through micro sprinkler at 0.75 IW/CPE ratio can be advisable for chickpea cultivation in semi-arid area. The grain yield at lower 0.3 IW/CPE ratio (16.13 q ha-1) was lowest among all the treatments due to insufficient soil moisture and its distribution in root zone under inadequate depth (7.5 mm). The total irrigation water used in 0.75 IW/CPE ratio was (253 mm). The water use efficiency decreased with increase in IW/CPE ratio. The net monetary returns and B:C ratio was highest in surface irrigation. Based on the above findings, it could be concluded that growing of chickpea with irrigation scheduling at surface irrigation was beneficial for achieving higher productivity and B:C ratio. Nevertheless, under water scarcity condition micro sprinkler at 0.75 IW/CPE ratio better in practice.