Integrated effect of planting time and chickpea genotypes on productivity, disease and insect-pest incidence in rainfed-kandi areas of Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) or bengal gram is an important food legume in the developing countries. In India, it is cultivated in an area of 7.10 m ha with production of 5.65 m tonnes and productivity of 795 kg/ha (Singh 2006). In Jammu and Kashmir, pulses occupy an area of 36,250 ha with total production of 2,30,000 q, recording productivity of 634 kg/ha during 2005-06 (Anonymous 2006). Chickpea is the second important pulse crop of the region next only to urdbean. During vegetative phase, chickpea crop experiences long dry spells in this Jammu Kandi belt, resulting in reduced total biomass production. In addition to that, sometimes drought occurs at flowering, seed development and at maturity stage as well, thus affecting the seed yield drastically. Time of sowing is, therefore, the deciding factor in escaping the peak drought period during most critical crop growth stages. Different varieties also differ in their response to drought stress. At flowering stage, the infestation of pod borer (Helicoverpa armigera) is another major constraint limiting chickpea production of this area. The damage caused by this pest on chickpea ranges up to 84.4% with an average of 7% in different farming systems (Lateef 1992). Alterations in cultural practices viz., different fertilizer doses have been reported to influence pod borer damage (Hossain et al. 2009). Considering the above facts, the present study was undertaken, to assess the impact of sowing date and different varieties on grain yield and its attributes and disease and pest incidence