Post-flowering dry matter accumulation and partitioning and timing of crop maturity in chickpea in western Canada

Abstract

A field experiment aimed at determining whether timing of crop maturity was related to patterns of dry matter (DM) accumulation and partitioning to reproductive organs in chickpea was conducted at different locations in Saskatchewan over two seasons, 2003 and 2004. Five genotypes 272-2, 298T-9, E100Ym, CDC Anna, and CDC Frontier were grown in a RCB design with four replications. Beginning at 60 d after seeding (DAS) and every 15 d following, plant samples were taken and separated into stem, leaf and pod fractions. Then dry weights of the sample fractions were determined. Total DM production showed an increasing trend over sampling dates, but the increase was at a decreasing rate beginning in mid-season. The early genotype 272-2 had a pattern of total DM accumulation similar to the others, but had significantly smaller vegetative (stem plus leaf) DM accumulation during the latter part of the growth period. This shows a relatively high proportion of DM partitioning to pod for 272-2. Also, the partitioning of resources to reproductive parts (allometric partitioning) and pod harvest index were each negatively associated with days to maturity, implying that assimilate partitioning for maximum pod DM is important for early maturity in chickpea in western Canada. Key words: days to maturity, post-flowering growth, dry matter, dry matter partitioning, pod harvest index