ABSTRACT

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of sowing dates and varieties on seed yield and quality in chickpea varieties during the Rabi season at the RARS, Vijayapur, during 2023–24. The experiment was laid out in a RCBD (Factorial concept) design with three replications. It consists of four dates of sowing, viz., second fortnight of September, first fortnight of October, second fortnight of October and first fortnight of November, as main factor and six varieties, viz. JG-11, JAKI-9218, BGD-103, BGD 111-1, VIJAYA and JG -14 as second factor. Sowing at first fortnight of October recorded significantly highest plant height at 30, 60 DAS and at harvest (26.77, 41.05 and 44.70 cm, respectively), number of branches per plant at 30, 60 DAS and at harvest (5.58, 8.58 and 11.58, respectively), number of pods per plant (39.74), number of seeds per pod (1.09) and seed yield (17.29 q/ha). Among the different varieties, Vijaya recorded significantly highest plant height, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant (43.31) and seed yield (19.01 q/ha). Based on the results, chickpea variety Vijaya sown during first fortnight of October, provides ideal climatic conditions for getting higher productivity.
Further, the laboratory experiments were conducted in Department of Seed Science and Technology, at college of agriculture Vijaypur from November to June 2024 to ascertain the “To study the impact of different growing environments on seed quality during storage” seeds harvested from the sowing of first fortnight of October exhibited superior storability in terms of maintaining key seed quality parameters. Among all the varieties tested, Vijaya showed the best performance across various seed quality attributes such as germination percentage (96.91 %), shoot and root length (16.50 cm and 19.94 cm, respectively), seedling vigour index I and II (3545 and 27051, respectively), seedling dry weight (310.32 mg). Thus, seeds harvested from the sowing of first fortnight of October for the variety Vijaya retained high quality throughout the storage period.