Effect Of Plant Density And Phosphate Fertilizer On Growth , Yield And Quality Of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out in winter season 2012 – 2013 at Agriculture and Forestry College University of Mosul to determine the effect of plant density (21, 28 and 42) plant/m2 with three levels of phosphate fertilizer (40 ,60 and 80)kg p205/ha on some growth , yield and quality traits of chickpea using Randomized Complete Block Design (R.C.B.D.) with three replicaties . The results showed that there were significant differences between plant density on all studied traits except for the number of seeds / pod , It was observed that plant height , seed yield , biological yield and seed protein percentage were increased at plant density 42 plant / m2 , while the number of primary branches /plant , weight of total and filled pods/ plant, harvest index and test weight were increased at plant population 21 plant / m2 . phosphate fertilizer had a significant effect on weight of total pods/ plant, No. of seeds / pod , biological yield , test weight and seed protein percentage , It was observed also that number of seeds / pod and biological yield were increased at level 80 kg /ha and weight of total pods/ plant, test weight and seed protein percentage at level 40 kg/ ha .The interaction between plant population and phosphorus fertilizer had a significant effect on all studied characteristics .