EFFECT OF SEEDING RATES AND CUTTING DATES ON THE GROWTH TRAITS, SEED YIELD AND SEED YIELD COMPONENTS OF THE FENUGREEK Trigonella foenum-graecum L.

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of the field crops sciences department/ College of Agriculture/ University of Diyala during season (2016-2017) to study the effect of seeding rates (24, 36, 48 kg.h-1) and cutting dates (90, 105, 120) days after cultivating on growth traits , seed yield and seed yield components of fenugreek local cultivar. The experiment was conducted with the Randomized Complete Blocks Design (RCBD) in the split plot arrangement with three replicates. The seeding rates were the main plots, while the cutting dates were assigned as a sub plots. The study showed the following results: The seeds and dates had a significant effect on all the studied traits except number of branches that were not significant in both factors. The seeding rate was 24 kg.h-1 and the cutting date 90 days after cultivating gave a higher seed yield 0.590 and 0.548 ton, respectively. There was a significant effect of the interaction between seed rates and mowing cutting in all studied traits.