Influence of Soil Application of Organic Manures and Foliar Spray of Liquid Biofertilizers on Growth and Seed Yield of Kabuli Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Varieties 

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the third most important pulse crop in the world after beans and peas popularly valued for its nutritive seed composition with highly digestible protein (21.10%), carbohydrates (61.50%) and fats (4.50%) and used increasingly as a substitute for animal protein. It is predominantly consumed in the form of whole grain or dhal, sprouted grain, green or matured dry seeds and is used in the preparation of variety of snacks, sweets and condiments. Chickpea is classified as Kabuli and Desi based on seed size, shape and colour which are cultivated globally. Globally and nationally the area, production and productivity of Kabuli chickpea is very low as compared to Desi type chickpea. In Asia, India is the largest producer of chickpea contributing over 70 per cent of the world production occupying an area of 86.80 lakh hectare with a production of 80.90 lakh tonnes and with productivity of 932 kg per hectare. The major chickpea growing states in India are Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka (Anonymous., 2017).
        
Organic seed production system involves use of organic seed quality enhancement treatments, integrated organic nutrient management practices viz., organic manures, green manures and biofertilizers etc. and integrated organic plant protection viz., agronomic practices, crop rotation, growing border/trap crops and use of botanicals, biopesticides biocontrol agents apart from encouraging natural parasites, predators and parasitoids etc. (Vanangamudi, 2014). In this era of synthetic world, there has been increased health awareness among people of several developed countries and day-by-day there is exponential increase in demand and preference for organic food and fibre and its by-products. This change is mainly due to over use or misuse of chemicals, particularly synthetic insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, plant growth regulators, etc. that are resulting in undesirable side effects not only in the agro-ecosystems, but also on human health and life system of beneficial fauna and microorganisms. India has made a spectacular breakthrough in production and consumption of fertilizers during the last four decades. In the present situation consumption of non renewable form of energy i.e. chemical fertilizers will be quite a limiting factor of agricultural production in near future. Because of escalating energy cost, chemical fertilizers are not available at affordable price to the farmers to use in production system. Recently, Karnataka State Seed and Organic Certifying Agency (KSSOCA) has encouraged the growers for certifying the organically grown seeds, which are in great demand. But, there is lack of information and awareness about organic seed production and, no standardized organic packages and protocol are available with special reference to seed production aspects. Hence, an attempt was made to study the influence of soil application of organic manures and foliar spray of liquid biofertilizers on growth and seed yield of kabuli chickpea varieties.

The field experiment was conducted during rabi 2015-16 and 2016-17 in a Split Plot design with three replications at Water and Land Use Management Institute (WALMI) farm, Dharwad on organically maintained field for more than 10 years. The experiment consisted of two kabuli chickpea varieties viz., V₁: BG1105 and V₂: MNK-1 and seven treatments viz., T₁: Application of 100% organics equivalent to RDP [50% Farm yard manure (FYM) and 50% Vermicompost], T₂: T₁+ Foliar application of Panchagavya @ 3% at flowering and 15 Days after flowering, T₃: T₁+ Foliar application of Biodigester @ 10% at flowering and 15 Days after flowering, T₄: T₁+ Foliar application of cow urine spray @ 10% at flowering and 15 Days after flowering, T₅: 50% organic (FYM 25% and Vermicompost 25%) + 50% inorganic RDF, T₆: 75% RDF + 25% organic (FYM 12.5% and Vermicompost 12.5%) and T₇: 100% RDF (control). The organic manures viz., Vermicompost, Farm yard manure and foliar biofertilizers viz., Panchagavya, Biodigester and Cowurine used in the present investigation had different nutrient composition of both major and micronutrients. The details are furnished in Table 1.
 

        
The biometric observations on growth parameters were recorded at different stages of the plant growth. For recording various parameters five plants at random from net plot area were selected and tagged in each plot for taking observations on plant height, chlorophyll content. However, the yield attributing parameters like the number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant, hundred seed weight, seed yield per plant and hectare were recorded at harvest. Whereas, for recording the observations on root nodules per plant, five plants from the net plot were randomly uprooted at 60 days after sowing. Statistical analysis was done as per the procedure described by Gomez and Gomez (2010).

Influence of Kabuli chickpea varieties on growth, seed yield and yield attributes
 
The plant growth, seed yield and yield attribute are greatly influenced by genetic makeup of the varieties besides, several biotic, abiotic, agronomic and management practices. Significant variation in growth, seed yield and yield attributes were observed in Kabuli chickpea varieties irrespective of soil application of organic manures and foliar spray of liquid biofertilizers. In the present study, varietal differences with respect to field performance have been noticed in Kabuli chickpea during 2015-16, 2016-17 and in pooled data. Variety BG1105 (V₁) recorded significantly, higher plant height (46.26, 48.95 and 47.61 cm plant^-1) (Table 2), chlorophyll content (50.91, 52.51 and 51.71 SPAD value plant^-1) (Table 2), number of root nodules (18.58, 20.02 and 19.30 plant^-1) (Table 2), number of primary branches (10.34, 10.38 and 10.36 plant^-1) (Table 2), number of pods (72.58, 81.17 and 76.87 plant^-1) (Table 3), seed yield (24.40, 25.10 and 24.80 g plant^-1) (Table 3) and seed yield (14.18, 16.36 and 12.90 q ha^-1) (Table 3) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively compared to MNK-1 variety (V₂) (43.94, 45.41 and 45.37 cm plant^-1; 48.78, 48.64 and 48.71 SPAD value plant^-1; 13.79, 15.75 and 14.77 plant^-1; 8.71, 9.57 and 9.14 plant^-1; 34.61, 43.23 and 38.92 plant^-1; 17.80, 18.90 and 18.30 g and 11.83, 13.68 and 10.72 q ha^-1, respectively.) Whereas, significantly higher hundred seed weight was recorded in MNK-1 (V₂) (37.82, 37.70 and 37.76 g) (Table 3), than the variety BG1105 (V₁) (25.49, 25.53 and 25.51 g) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. The probable reason for improvement in growth and yield attributing parameters may be mainly due to efficient accumulation of photosynthates in the vegetative plant parts. It was found that, the genotypes differed significantly for growth, seed yield and its attributes may be due to their genetic differences. Such differential genotypic response on growth parameters are also in conformity with those reports of Merwade (2000) and Gnyandev (2009) in chickpea.
 

 

 
Influence of soil application of organic manures and foliar spray of liquid biofertilizers on crop growth, seed yield and yield attributes
 
Soil application of organic manures and foliar spray of liquid biofertilizers had greater impact on crop growth, seed yield and yield attribute during 2015-16 and 2016-17. Significantly, higher plant height (47.94, 51.77 and 50.20 cm) (Table 2) was recorded due to T₂ (T₁ + Foliar application of panchagavya @ 3% at flowering and 15 Days after flowering) compared to control (42.86, 44.14 and 43.85 cm) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. This might be due to soil application of organic manures and foliar spray of liquid biofertilizers which constituted the essential macro nutrients viz., Nitrogen (0.91%), Phosphorus (0.17%), Potash (0.27%) along with major micronutrients viz., 24.5 ppm Zn, 7950 ppm Fe and 47.5 ppm Mn and 5.25 ppm Cu in vermicompost, (0.77% N, 0.16% P, 0.23% K, 17 ppm Zn, 1256 ppm Fe, 107 ppm Mn and 23 ppm Cu) in FYM and (916 ppm N, 163 ppm P, 971 K, 1.24 ppm Zn, 31.9 ppm Fe, 4.55 ppm Mn and1.93 ppm Cu) in panchagavya and superior over biodigester, cow urine (Table 1). The presence of adequate quantity of N, P and K along with additional quantity of micronutrient in FYM and vermicompost might helped in creating favourable condition for cell division, tissue development, enhanced the plant growth through development of vigorous and stronger root system thereby, enabling the plant to derive adequate available soil moisture and nutrients as compared to RDF (T₇) which is deficit in these additional micronutrients (Vasanthi and Kumaraswamy, 1999 and Giraddi, 2001).
        
Similarly significantly, higher chlorophyll content (SPAD value) (52.81, 53.50 and 53.16) (Table 2) was recorded due to T₂ compared to Control i.e 100% RDF (T₇) (47.58, 48.49 and 48.03) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. This might be due to the application of FYM, vermicompost and panchagavya which constitute essential micronutrients which acts as main component of some antioxidants enzymes which are involved in the protection of chloroplasts from free radicals and also due to the action of Iron and Mg which are considered as constituent of the heme group that act as precursor of chlorophyll and effective conversion of essential micronutrients from these organic sources such as Fe, Mg and Zn available at the site of photosynthesis (Marschner, 1995) there by increased the chlorophyll content, which further might have increased the photosynthetic activity with higher intake of carbon dioxide due to higher stomatal conductance and reduced resistance. Whereas, significantly, higher root nodules (17.31, 19.25 and 18.28) (Table 2) was recorded due to T₂ compared to T₇ (100% RDF) (14.62, 16.35 and 15.49) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. This might be due to presence of additional essential micronutrients viz., Fe, Zn and Mo in FYM and vermicompost, which are required by rhizobia present in soil for atmospheric nitrogen fixation in legumes and are considered as important constituents of nitrate reductase, nitrogenase and is required for both synthesis and activity of enzymes (Campo et al., 2000). More the number of nodules more will be the nitrogen fixation in plant roots which ultimately increases the vegetative growth and yield. These results were in conformation with the findings of Nekar et al. (2009) in groundnut and Deotale et al. (2011) in soybean.
        
Likewise at harvest significantly, higher number of primary branches (10.43, 10.74 and 10.59) (Table 2), pods per plant (64.87, 71.37 and 68.12) (Table 3) were recorded due to T₂compared to control (T₇) (8.94, 9.30, 9.21 and 40.95, 52.15, 46.55, respectively) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. Increase in primary branches and pods might be due to the presence of all major nutrients, micro nutrients and growth hormones (IAA and GA₃) in panchagavya which might have involved in shoot elongation through increasing cell enlargement and cell division with excess in vegetative growth there by increased number of reproductive flowers and the pod bearing branches. Similarly the higher values for various physiological parameters registered by this treatment helped in translocation of food materials from source (vegetative parts) to sink (pod). These results were in agreement with Patil et al., (2012) in chickpea, Shariff et al. (2017) in greengram, Singh et al. (2014) in chickpea and field pea.
        
Similarly at harvest significantly, higher seed yield per plant (24.00, 24.90 and 24.50 g) (Table 3) was recorded due to T₂ (T₁+ Foliar application of panchagavya @ 3% at flowering and 15 Days after flowering) and was on par with T₃ (23.00, 23.90 and 23.50 g) and T₄ (21.70, 22.70 and 22.62 g), whereas 100% RDF (control) (T₇) exhibited lower seed yield per plant (18.30, 19.20 and 18.70 g) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. Higher seed yield per hectare (15.04, 17.45 and 16.25 q) (Table 3) was recorded due to T₂ and was on par with T₃ (14.25, 17.19 and 15.72 q), T₄ (13.73, 15.27 and 14.50 q) and lowest was recorded by control (T₇) (11.16, 13.17 and 12.17 q) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. Increased seed yield per plant and per hectare of Kabuli chickpea varieties might be due to supply of chelating agents which help in maintaining the solubility of micronutrients, organic colloids present in FYM and vermicompost provide exchange sites on which plant nutrients are adsorbed, higher the finer fraction of soil more the nutrient holding capacity which further help in optimization of available essential micro and macro nutrients to the plants and also improvement in soil quality in terms of improvement in water stable aggregates in the soil. The organic manures has slow release of nitrogen, due to its slow mineralization, helps in increased water holding capacity and other physical properties which might have caused increased rate of infiltration, resulting in the formation of vigorous root development, more number of root nodules, better nitrogen fixation and better development of plant growth. While in panchagavya, the presence of micronutrients, plant growth promoting regulator like IAA and GA₃ and the presence of cow dung in it, act as a medium for the growth of beneficial microbes and cow urine provides nitrogen which might have helped in the availability of nutrients commensurate with the growth through higher photosynthetic activity and translocation of photosynthates to the sink which might have favorably influenced the flowering and seed formation with increased in number of pods per plant, seeds per pod and hundred seed weight (32.82, 32.41 and 32.61 g) (Table 3) compared to other treatment and control (100% RDF) (31.07, 30.99 and 31.03 g) during 2015-16, 2016-17 and pooled data, respectively. These results are in agreement with De Britto and Girija (2006) in black gram and greengram, Kumaravelu and Kadambian (2009) in greengram and Singh et al. (2014) in chickpea and field pea.

Application of either 100% organics equivalent to RDP (50% FYM and 50% vermicompost + foliar application of panchagavya @ 3% at flowering and 15 days after flowering (T₂) or application of 100% organics equivalent to RDP (50% FYM and 50% vermicompost + foliar application of Biodigester @ 10% at flowering and 15 days after flowering (T₃) or application of 100% organics equivalent to RDP (50% FYM and 50% vermicompost + foliar application of cow urine spray @ 10% at flowering and 15 days after flowering (T₄) can be used for obtaining higher seed yield in Kabuli chickpea varieties.