Seed-Rate And Spacing Neverthless, Chickpea stands in farmer's fields are after poor and while limited availability of water in the seed bed may be a major factor, other factors may interact with this, such as seed maturation environment, storage condition, depth of seeding, soil compaction and soil temperature. During one season 12 inch (31cm) spacing between two lines had yielded significantly higher than either 15 or 18 inch spacing (38cm or 46cm), the increase in yield was rather small. 25cm spacing between two adjacent rows gave significantly higher yield than 38cm spacing with medium grained varieties. It is advantageous to adopt a wider spacing of 37 to 46 mm between rows for this crop. From the economic stand-point it is better to keep a wider spacing of either 15 cm of 20 cm between two plants within a row. In Madras, 15 x 10 cm spacing has been found to be the optimum for grain. In west Bengal, November sowing is found to give the best yield. At Kharagpur, the line sowing has been observed to be better than broadcast sowing. A higher yield of grain has been obtained with a spacing of 30 x 15 mm in case of the unmanured crop, and 30x30 mm in the case of the manured one. Seed Rate Seed rate 50-65 kg/ha. Treat the seed with rhizobium culture to increase the yield by 20-25%. Sowing Seed drills of 6 tynes normally employed for drilling the seed in lines covers 5-6 acres in a day of eight hours. The spacing adopted is 30 cm between rows and 10 cm within the row between plants.

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Sowing Sowing is done during October and November after heavy rains are over in lines 12 to 18 inches (0.30 to 0.45 cm) apart. A heavy drill is used for sowing the seeds at the rate of 45 per kg hectare. In the case of very bold seeded varieties seed-rate up to 67 kg per hectare may be necessary. As a second crop, after the harvest of previous Kharif crop, gram is sown with the help of a Pora or a Moghan run behind the plough. In a crop thus sown, the plants get sufficient space for a good growth, enabling easy intercultivation. When optimum mixed cropping is desired, the crop be grown in alternate narrow strips (one drill of gram alternating with one drill of a cereal like Jowar) to obtain the maximum beneficial effect of the pulse crop on the cereal. In the next year, strip the advantage of an additional rotation. The crop often responds well to phosphatic fertilizers applied at the rate of 112 kg superphosphate per hectare. In vertisols with good water retention capacity, the crop is sown after the cessation of monsoon rains and usually does not require any irrigation. In some years irrigation is required at sowing if the rains are scanty or if they stop early. Time of sowing affect the crop performance through interaction between altered aerial and edaphic crop environment. For most of the northern Chickpea tracts mid-October to mid-November is the ideal period of planting and any deviation from this causes conspicuous reduction in yield. In areas the winter period is rather short eg., in the eastern and southern parts of India, the optimum range for planting becomes still narrower. Throughout most of the Chickpea growing areas of India, this crop is grown on conserved soil moisture in the early spring. A rapid rise in temperature and vegetative and reproductive growth period of the crop, thus resulting in low yield. Soils newly brought under Chickpea are deficient in natural Rhizobium and it is necessary to inoculate to ensure adequate nodulation. As a precaution until Rhizobium levels have been built up, a dressing of 30 kg N/ha. is applied as starter dose. There is a close relationship between the weight of seeds and seedlings resulted in better seedling vigour. The greater seedling vigour of larger seeds may be rated to greater seed reserves. This could be of practical importance in overcoming problems of emergence from crusted soils. Depth of sowing is important in case of gram. If the crop is planted under dryland condition, the seeding at a depth of 10cm is beneficial on two accounts. First, it takes moisture from deep strata of the soils, second the root system escapes the zone where fungus-causing wilt is concentrated. Where this crop is to be planted under irrigated conditions, seeding at a depth of 5 cm is desirable.

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Mixed Cropping Important element to minimise risk in dry farming is the inter cropping of crops like redgram with main crops like sorghum. An intercrop of pulse can give 100 per cent of solid stand of the main crop plus 60 per cent of the yield of the pulse crop without any extra input except seeding in between the main crop. In dry farming areas intercropping is going to the cropping system of tomorrow and this is going to be a major contributor towards production, towards covering risk, towards improving nutrition and above all towards giving confidence in the new technology to the poor. It is also necessary to develop varieties for better response to the temperature stress, the moisture stress and certain photo- sensitive situations. In dry farmup areas, pulse production and dry farming technology are linked together. (a) Gram with Wheat In the northern and peninsular India, growing wheat in combination with gram is common. Mixed cropping was found effective in increasing wheat yield when grown with gram under Nagpur conditions. The effect of fertilizers was enhanced when wheat was grown in asssociation with gram. (b) Gram with barley A gram-barley mixture was found to be more paying than entire gram grown at Gwalior. (c) Gram with jowar Growing rabi jowar mixed with gram was found more profitable than either jowar or gram alone at Raichur. (d) Gram, linseed and wheat A mixture(proprotion) of 10 gram, 10 linseed and 80 wheat yielded the best returns. (e) Rotation In Maharashtra and Madras, gram-jowar and gram-wheat was found to be the best two-course rotation, and gram-jowar cotton was the best three-course rotation. In general , gram has been found to be an ideal crop for rotation and mixed farming as almost any crop succeeding gram grows well.

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