INTERACTIVE EFFECT OF GENOTYPES AND ORGANIC MANURES ON PHENOTYPIC ATTRIBUTES OF CHICKPEA (CICER ARIENTINUM L.)

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) belongs to the legume family, one of the most important pulse crops due to its high nutritional values compared to other pulses. Chickpea production is very low in Pakistan compared to other countries because of low soil fertility. Organic manure like farmyard manure and poultry manure have good water and nutrient holding capacity, which nourish the plants. To this end, an experiment was conducted at BZU Bahadur Sub-campus Layyah, Pakistan, to investigate farmyard manure's and poultry manure's effects on chickpea. Data were collected for the number of buds and pods, plant height, biological yield, economical yield, and 100-grain weight. Results showed that farmyard manure significantly increased all chickpea varieties' measured traits compared to both control and poultry manure treatments. The variety Parbat produced the highest economical yield under farmyard manure fertilization compared to all other varieties and treatments. Correlation analysis revealed that all the measured traits were strongly positively correlated with economical yield, and path coefficient analysis revealed that biological yield and numbers of the pod have a highest positive direct effect on economical yield, which showed that manures enhance the yield-related traits, which increased the economical yield in chickpea. The present study revealed that applying farm yard manure and poultry manure is essential for better seed production of chickpea.