ABSTRACT
The field experiment was titled “Effect of dates of sowing on growth and yield of Chickpea varieties” was conducted during rabi 2022-23, at Crop Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, SHUATS, Prayagraj (UP). The soil of the experimental plot was sandy loam in texture. The experiment consists of three varieties (Himmat, Shulabh-45 and Chirag) and three different dates of sowing November 5th, November 15th and November 25th including control i.e., blanket application of 20-60-20 kg/ha of NPK (farmer's practice) which were replicated thrice. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with ten treatments viz., T1: Himmat + November 5, T2: Himmat + November 15, T3: Himmat + November 25, T4: Shulabh-45 + November 5, T5: Shulabh-45 + November 15, T6: Shulabh-45 + November 25, T7: Chirag + November 5, T8: Chirag + November 15, T9: Chirag + November 25, and control plot. The results of the experiment concluded that the variety Shulabh-45 with the date of sowing on November 25th significantly increased the growth parameters viz., plant height (45.54 cm), Number of nodules per plant (31.87), Plant dry weight (20.45 g/plant), and yield parameters viz., pods per plant (35.53), seeds per pod (1.35), seed yield (3.37 t/ha) and stover yield (4.90 t/ha). This treatment also showed its positive effect on economics viz., gross returns (1,71,870 INR/ha), net returns (1,19,475 INR/ha), B:C (2.28).