Effect of Dates of Sowing on Growth and Yield of Chickpea Varieties

The field experiment was titled “Effect of dates of sowing on growth and yield of Chickpea varieties” was conducted during rabi 2022-23, at Crop Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, SHUATS, Prayagraj (UP). The soil of the experimental plot was sandy loam in texture. The experiment consists of three varieties (Himmat, Shulabh-45 and Chirag) and three different dates of sowing November 5th, November 15th and November 25th including control i.e., blanket application of 20-60-20 kg/ha of NPK (farmer's practice) which were replicated thrice. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with ten treatments viz., T1: Himmat + November 5, T2: Himmat + November 15, T3: Himmat + November 25, T4: Shulabh-45 + November 5, T5: Shulabh-45 + November 15, T6: Shulabh-45 + November 25, T7: Chirag + November 5, T8: Chirag + November 15, T9: Chirag + November 25, and control plot. The results of the experiment concluded that the variety Shulabh-45 with the date of sowing on November 25th significantly increased the growth parameters viz., plant height (45.54 cm), Number of nodules per plant (31.87), Plant dry weight (20.45 g/plant), and yield parameters viz., pods per plant (35.53), seeds per pod (1.35), seed yield (3.37 t/ha) and stover yield (4.90 t/ha). This treatment also showed its positive effect on economics viz., gross returns (1,71,870 INR/ha), net returns (1,19,475 INR/ha), B:C (2.28).