Soil Fertility and Fertilizer Use Section, Land Resources Research Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad45500, Pakistan.
Field experiments were carried out to investigate the cause of chlorosis in some varieties of chickpea grown on calcareous soils of Pothowar region of Pakistan. There were varietal differences. The cause of the chlorosis was Fe deficiency. Total Fe content of leaf tissue was not related with chlorosis. but o-phenanthroline extractable ferrous (Fe2+) content of fresh leaves was related fairly well with the severity of chlorosis. Soil application of sequestrene, and foliar sprays of sequestrene and FeSO4 solution corrected the chlorosis. Best control of chlorosis and maximum increase in grain yield of chickpea was obtained with foliar applied sequestrene.
Iron chlorosis, chickpea varieties, foliar analysis, total iron, ferrous iron
