Impact of Sowing Time, Tillage and Variety Management on Growth Indices, Nodulation and Yield Parameters of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) Grown after Monsoon Rice in Lower Gangetic Plains of West Bengal

A field experiment was conducted at District Seed Farm, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Kalyani, West Bengal during rabi seasons of 2018-19 and 2019-20 to assess the impact of sowing time, tillage operation, and variety on the growth indices, nodulation pattern and profitable production of chickpea grown under residual moisture after rice harvest. The experiment was laid out in a split-split plot design with 3 replications comprising two sowing time (early November sowing after harvesting of short duration kharif rice and late November sowing after harvesting of long duration kharif rice) in main plots, three tillage operations (relay cropping with no tillage, zero tillage and conventional tillage) in sub plots and two varieties (short duration ‘JG 14’ and long duration ‘JAKI 9218’) in sub-sub plots. Different growth indices like plant height and dry aerial biomass at maturity, number of nodules/plant and dry weight of nodules/plant at 45 and 60 DAS indicated superiority of early sown zero tilled short duration variety in comparison to other treatments. Similar trend was also found for number of primary branches/plant, number of pods/plant, number of seeds/pod, and 100 seed weight which ultimately lead to maximum seed yield (1250 and 1291 kg/ha in 2018-19 and 2019-20) of chickpea. So, introduction of zero tillage in early November sown short duration chickpea may be a feasible option for winter pulse cultivating farmers of lower gangetic plains of West Bengal.