Narendra Kumar Bhinda, P. C. Chaplot, J. Choudhary, R.H. Meena, B. Upadhyay and S.S. Sisodia
Abstract
A field experiment was conducted at Instructional farm, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur (Rajasthan) during the rabi season 2021-22 and 2022-23 to evaluate the effect of zinc biofortification methods on symbiotic and phenological parameters of chickpea varieties. The experiment consisted four chickpea varieties and six zinc biofortification methods thereby involving 24 treatment combinations which was replicated four times in split plot design. The chickpea variety GNG 2144 recorded highest mean effective root nodules plant-1 (39.82) and their dry weight (140.4 mg plant-1) which was significantly higher over varieties GNG 1958, RVG 203 and Pratap Chana 1. The soil application of 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1+ foliar application of 0.5% ZnSO4 recorded significantly higher mean effective root nodules plant-1 (37.93) and their dry weight (136.3 mg plant-1) over rest of zinc biofortification methods. The chickpea variety Pratap Chana 1 took minimum days to attain 50% flowering (66.55) and maturity (134.5) as compared to rest of chickpea varieties. Among zinc biofortification methods, soil application of 25 kg ZnSO4 ha-1+ foliar application of 0.5% ZnSO4 took minimum days to attain 50% flowering (124.5) and brings early crop maturity over rest of zinc biofortification methods.