The Impacts of Nano-Structured Nutrients on Chickpea Performance under Supplemental Irrigation

Abstract

Chickpea is a legume of the family Fabaceae and the most widely grown crop in the semi‑arid Mediterranean regions. This pulse crop can grow on almost any soil and is well adapted to the semi‑arid conditions, but for good growth it requires a fertile soil with good residual moisture. Therefore, nutrient‑and water‑management practices are necessary agronomic options to improve chickpea production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different conventional and nano‑fertilizers on growth and yield of Kabuli chickpea under supplemental irrigation. The experiment was carried out at a research field in dry highland of Maragheh, North western Iran. Plants were grown under rainfed situation during the vegetative growth and supplement irrigations was applied during flowering and seed filling stages. The effect of nine nutrient treatments including T1: control (no fertilizer application), T2: nano‑chelated iron, T3: nano‑chelated manganese, T4: nano‑chelated copper, T5: nano‑chelated boron, T6: organic manganese, T7: conventional NPK fertilizer, T8: multi‑nutrient nano‑fertilizer and T9: nano‑chelated zinc were evaluated. Result showed that application of multi‑nutrient nano‑fertilizer, conventional NPK fertilizer and nano‑chelated Zn considerably improved the both vegetative growth (e.g. plant height, canopy width, number of the branches) and yield components. Also the highest chlorophyll concentration (P < 0.05) was recorded for plant grown by application of multi‑nutrient / compound fertilizers. There was a significant positive correlation between chlorophyll concentration and seed yield components (P < 0.01). Among the applied micronutrients, plants significantly responded to nano‑chelated Zn. Conventional NPK significantly improved the lateral growth (canopy width, ground cover, branches numbers).The results pointed out that the best performance of chickpea could be achievable through utilization of nano‑ of multi‑nutrient fertilizer, with the simultaneous release of micronutrients and macronutrients. The findings provided illustrative information in order to appreciate the importance of balanced crop nutrition in semi‑arid Mediterranean region.