Evaluation of rhizobium efficiency in chickpea through boron management

This study aims to evaluate the Rhizobium efficiency in chickpea through boron management. The study was carried out during Rabi season of 2006–07 at the Crop Research Centre, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar. The experimental soil was neutral sandy loam with organic carbon of 0.73 per cent, available N and P of 163.07 and 12.33 kg/ha and 0.84, 1.33 and 0.3 mg/kg available Zinc, Boron and Molybdenum, respectively. The total bacterial counts in the initial sample were 5.83x10⁵ CFU/g soil, fungi of 2.90x10³ propagules/g soil and dehydrogenase activity was 40.29 μg/TPF/g soil/24 h. Six treatments consisting combinations of Boron with and without Rhizobium sp. inoculation, were laid out in randomized block design (RBD) in triplicate. Rhizobium inoculation gave significant increase of 32.60% in nodule dry weight at 75 DAS over control. Among the two levels of boron_{, 10 kg Borax/ha was found superior to 5 kg Borax/ha for different studied parameters. Combined application of Rhizobium and 5 kg Borax/ha showed better and positive effect on nodulation, plant dry weight, uptake and yield of chickpea than the 10 kg Borax/ha. The highest grain yield of 2977 kg/ha was recorded due to inoculation with Rhizobium + 10 kg Borax/ha. Boron application in combination with Rhizobium also influenced the dehydrogenase activity significantly.}