Physiological upscaling of crop response of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) with hormonal and nutritional interventions
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Date
2023-12-20
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Abstract
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), the ‘King of pulses’ is the third most important
protein rich pulse crop, with total global production of 11.6 million tonnes from 10.6
million hectares and a productivity of 1.09 tonnes ha-1 in 2019 (FAOSTAT, 2022). Small
amounts of plant growth regulators (PGRs) modify the growth regulation mechanism and
play a vital role in different metabolic processes (Taiz and Zeiger, 2002). Application of
suitable plant growth regulators was reported to improve the source sink relationship in
favorable direction and, thereby, increase the productivity (Hopkins, 2007). The present
experiment was conducted with the objectives of studying the effect of paclobutrazol,
boron and ethylene on growth, yield and yield attributes; their impact on source- sink
relationship; and their effect on biochemical aspect of chickpea.
The field studies of the investigation were conducted at the District Seed Farm, A-
B block, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal during
rabi season in the year 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 with chick pea genotype JG-14 as
experimental plant material and three bio-regulators, paclobutrazol, boron and ethylene as
experimental treatment materials. Two levels of cultar (paclobutrazol @ 0 ml/ha and 90
ml/ha) applied at pre-flowering (40 DAS) were combined with two levels of boric acid
(boron @ 0%, 0.5%)applied at budding stage (50 DAS) further combined with four levels
of ethephon (ethylene@ 0 g/ha, 250 g/ha, 500 g/ha and two split @ 250 g/ha) applied at
pre-harvesting stage (90 DAS) and four levels of ethylene altogether sixteen treatment
combinations were tried with three replications. Observations were made on yield and
yield attributes, reproductive phenology, dry matter accumulation in various parts along
with biochemical and physiological aspects of chick pea. The salient points of results were:
every individual bio-regulators, paclobutrazol applied at pre-flowering or boron applied at
budding stage or ethylene applied at pre-harvesting was effective in enhancing the seed
yield as well as most of the yield attributing traits positive associated seed yield;
Paclobutrazol among the bio-regulators was effective in enhancing yield and yield
attributes; paclobutrazol (@ 90 ml/ha) + boron (@ 0.5%) at budding stage + ethylene (@
500 g/ha) was best treatment combination recoding the highest seed yield, this treatment
combination was also effective in enhancing the yield attributing traits including the yield
Materials and Methods | 18
components; among the yield components, the number of pods per plant was consistently
associated with seed yield and the yield attributing traits like biological yield per plant,
seed weight per plant, pod weight per plant exhibited very strong to strong association
with yield whereas plant height and number of primary branches per plant exhibited very
strong negative association; seed protein content and seed carbohydrates content was also
affected by the bio-regulators treatments; the biochemical aspects like levels leaf pigments,
carbohydrates and soluble proteins were affected by the bio-regulator treatments;
reproductive phenology of the chick pea was also modified by the bio-regulator treatments;
morphological aspects as well as the physiological indicators of the as of the source organs
was influenced by the bio-regulator treatments.