Drought management in chickpea through foliar nutrition

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study the drought management in chickpea through foliar nutrition in the Northern Dry Zone of Karnataka during rabi 2023-24 at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Vijayapura, Karnataka. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with fourteen treatments and replicated three times. Treatments included foliar spray of water, urea @ 2%, KNO3@ 0.5%, 19:19:19 @ 0.5%, ZnSO4@ 0.5%, nano-urea @ 2 ml L-1, nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1, nano-zn @ 2 ml L-1, nano-zn @ 4 ml L-1, nano-urea @ 2 ml L-1+ nano-zn @ 2 ml L-1, nano-urea@ 2 ml L-1+ nano-zn @ 4 ml L-1, nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1+ nano-zn @ 2 ml L-1 and nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1+ nano-zn @ 4 ml L-1at flower initiation and pod formation stages and these were compared with control (no spray) and recommended dose offertilizers (RDF) is common for all treatments. The results revealed that, foliar spray of nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1 + nano-zn @4 ml L-1at flower initiation and pod formation stage produced significantly higher number of pods per plant (38), seedweight per plant (7.58 g), seed yield (1633 kg ha-1) and haulm yield (2205 kg ha-1) as compared to other treatments exceptnano-urea @ 4 ml L-1 + nano-zn @ 2 ml L-1. Significantly higher plant height (37.44 cm), leaf area index (0.85), relativechlorophyll content (53.47), NDVI value (0.92) and relative water content (73.71%) were recorded in nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1 +nano-zn @ 4 ml L-1 treatment.These findings suggest that foliar application of nano-urea @ 4 ml L-1 combined with nanozn@ 2-4 ml L-1 at the flower initiation and pod formation stages along side the RDF can effectively enhance chickpea yieldand profitability, even under drought conditions.