Yield and quality of chickpea (Cicer aerietinum) varieties as influenced by different planting techniques

An experiment was conducted on chickpea during 2007–08. Results indicated that chickpea sown without seed bed preparation with Pantnagar zero till drill produced the highest seed yield of 20.3 qha⁻¹ followed by zero tillage after removal of stubble (18.7 qha⁻¹), zero tillage with happy seeder (18.7 qha⁻¹) and reduced tillage (18.0 qha⁻¹) as compared to conventional tillage with paddy straw incorporation (16.4 qha⁻¹). This method also showed higher straw yield, biological yield, harvest index, NPK uptake and protein content. The bed planted crop (16.5 qha⁻¹) did not show any increase in seed yield over the conventional tillage. Among the varieties, PBG 5 gave the higher seed yield of 20.9 qha⁻¹ as compared to GPF 2 (17.0 qha⁻¹), BG 1053 (17.8 qha⁻¹) and L 550 (16.8 qha⁻¹) and also showed higher straw yield, biological yield, harvest index NPK uptake and protein content.