KING

1. WOLKITE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
REVIEW ON THE EFFECT OF PLANT DENSITY ON GROWTH AND
YIELDS OF CHICKPEA (Cicer arietinium L)
BY:
GATDET JAMES PAL ……………….ID NO NSR/0936/13
A SENIOR SEMINAR PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
PLANT SCIENCE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL AND NATURAL
RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT
WOLKITE UNIVERSITY
IMPARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE COURSE SENIOR SEMINAR IN
PLANT SCIENCE
ADVISOR MR CHIGIGN. A (PHD)
JAN,2024
WOLKITE ,ETHIOPIA

2. ii
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION........................................................................................................................ iv
1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................1
1.1 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................1
1.2 OBJECTIVE .......................................................................................................................................2
1.2.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE.............................................................................................................2
2. LITERATURE REVIEW .........................................................................................................................3
2.1 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION........................................................................................................3
2.2 BOTANIC DISTRIBUTION..............................................................................................................3
2.3 PRODUCTION OF CHICKPEA IN ETHIOPIA ...............................................................................3
2.4 ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF CHICKPEA .................................................................................4
2.5 EFFECT OF PLANTING POPULATION ON CHICKPEA .............................................................4
2.5.1 GROWTH PARAMETER..........................................................................................................4
2.5.2 ROOT PARAMETER..................................................................................................................5
2.5.3 EFFECT OF PLANT DENSITY ON YIELD OF CHICKPEA .................................................5
2.5.4 NUTRIENTS UPTAKE AND SOIL NUTRIENTS STATUS...................................................6
2.5.5 .NUTRITIONAL CONTENT.....................................................................................................7
3. SUMMARY.............................................................................................................................................8
4. CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................9
5. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................10

3. iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all I would like to thank Almighty God for giving me skills and knowledge for all
aspects of our educational carriers.
Secondly I would like to thank my Advisor MR Chigign A for his advice in every steps of
review.

4. iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
CSA Central Statistics Agency
FAO Food and Agricultural Organization
EARO Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization
ICRISAT International for Crops Research Institution for Semi-Arid Tropics
MOA Ministry of Agriculture
NAR Natural Agricultural Research
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation Development

5. 1
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) was the third most important pulse crop in the world after dry
bean and field pea (FAO STAT 2013). Chickpea was the one of the important cool season food
legume crops in Ethiopia which was mainly grown in Central, Northern and Eastern highland
area of the country where manual rainfall and latitude respectively range from (700-2000mm)
and 1400-2300 m. a. s. l (Geletu èt àl 1994). It fetch good price when sold at local market and
hence generate clash for farmers. Moreover, the crops were exported to Asia and Europe and
contributed positively to the foreign exchange earnings. For instance, in 2008 only Ethiopia had
exported 39,993 metric tons of chickpea crops to the different part of the world. Chickpea has a
major role in a daily diet for rural community and poor sector of urban population and it's straw
is used for animal feed. It had multipurpose grown for dry seed as pulse green pod as vegetables
source of food for livestock due to its high proteins, vitamin, mineral and fiber contents.
Chickpea seed contain potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium copper and zinc which
makes it's nutritionally the best edible pulse (feicral and Esmat 2011). It improved soil fertility
by fixing atmospheric nitrogen, meetings up to 80℅ of nitrogen requirements from symbiotic
nitrogen fixation. Despite these facts, the yields of chickpea in Ethiopia under farmer condition
is low (1.73 t/ha) (CSA2012) as compared to the potential yields of the crop under improved
management condition (3.5 t/ha). A number of limited factors contribute to its low productivity
such as water deficit, diseases insect, weed infestation and poor agronomic practice (ICRISAT
2005). In general, production and productivity of the crop was governed by the environmental
condition, genotypic traits and management of the crop. The optimum plant population the
establishment of adequate of plant population is the most important to realize the full yield
potential of the genotype. Many researcher reported the effect of plant population on grain yield
and some of agronomic characteristics of chickpea (Mansur al 2003). Planting density depends
on the environmental condition, seed size, plant type and way of sowing .

6. 2
1.2 OBJECTIVE
1.2.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
Therefore the objective of this seminar is to review on effect of planting density on growth and
yield of chickpea.
To review the effect of inter- and intra- row spacing on yield and yield components of chickpea.

7. 3
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION
Chickpea was the one of the first pulse crop domesticated and most probably originated in an
area of South Eastern Turkey and Syria. Chickpea growing areas are almost completely in Arid
and semi-Arid zone of the world. Globally it was grown in more than 52 countries and in an area
of 13.2 million hectares with 11.6 million tons of production (FAO STAT 2012). About 97℅ of
chickpea cultivation was in developing countries, where the crop is largely grown under
marginal areas with the moisture stress condition. India is the largest chickpea producer in the
world. Other chickpea production region were Eastern Africa, Northern Africa and
Mediterranean region, Australia, South Europe and South America.
2.2 BOTANIC DISTRIBUTION
Cultivated chickpea is self-pollinated diploid (2n=16) annual pulses crops with a relatively small
genome of 740Mb (Arumganathan & Earle 1991). Chickpea belong to genus cicer, family
fabaceae. The crop is herbaceous a small Bush with a diffused spreading branches from the base
which reach a heights of 20-150 cm depending on cultivar and growing condition. It is stem
is mostly erect. Branched and solid has a strong deep tap root system which makes it relatively
drought tolerance. Chickpea has pinnate type of compound leave in which the leaf let are
generally odd in number and borne directly in rachis.
2.3 PRODUCTION OF CHICKPEA IN ETHIOPIA
In Ethiopia the largest growing Chickpea regions are Amhara, Oromia and few distinct of Tigray
and SNNPR (EEPA 2004, FDRE 2010). Although chickpea was widely grown in Ethiopia, the
major produced areas were concentrated in the two regional states which are Amhara and
Oromia region. These two regions cover more than 90% of the entire chickpea area and
constitute about 92% of the total chickpea production (Menale èt àl 2009). The top 7 chickpea
produced zones are North Gondar, South Gonar, North Shewa, East Gojjam, West Gojjam, North
Wollo, and South Wollo are found in Amhara region and account for about 80% of the country's
chickpea production. In the Oromia region, the major producing zones are West Shewa and East
Shewa, which account for about 85% of the total areas and production in the regional states.

8. 4
2.4 ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF CHICKPEA
Chickpea was a valued crop and provide nutritious food for an expanded world population and
would become increasingly important with climatic change. Production rank was third after
bean with the mean annual production of over 10 million tons with most of the production .Land
area devoted to chickpea has increased in recent years and now stands at an estimated 13.5
million hectares. Production per unit area was slowly but steadily increased since 1961 at about 6
kg/ha per annum. Over 1.3 million tons of chickpea crops enter the world market annually to
supplement the need of the countries unable to meet demand through domestic production. The
average annual chickpea export was 34,308 MT, with an estimated annual foreign currency
earnings equivalent to US$ 20.93 million each year between 2005 and 2010. India, Australia and
Mexico were leading exporters. In the export market chickpea contributed a significant portion
of the total values of pulse export. For example the chickpea constitute about 48% of the pulse
export volume in 2002. During this period of time, the exported volume accounted for 27% of
the total quantity of chickpea production while the balance remained for domestic market
(Shiferaw èt àl 2007).
2.5 EFFECT OF PLANTING POPULATION ON CHICKPEA
2.5.1 GROWTH PARAMETER
Chickpea like many other crop has the ability to make adjustment to the available space. Wider
spacing (low plant population density) allows the plant to be profusely branched and too narrow
spacing make the sparsely branched. A tall/erect variety produce 60% more yield at higher
plant population density (5.0 million tones) than lower density (1.67 million tones) while a local
bushy cultivar showed little response to high density. Chickpea was generally planted at a
density of 33 plant 30cm row to row spacing and 10cm plant to plant spacing. However
Jeswani(1986) stressed need to define ide type in pulse to improve the harvest index for major
breakthrough change in plant type by reduced their spreading, indeterminate and bushy habits.
Siddiqu èt àl (1984) proposed chickpea ide type for enhancement of yield comprising not more
than two branches when sown at higher planting density. Similar ide type approach was
suggested to overcome the genetic limited of chickpea productivity by introduction of major
morph physiological change such as compact and erect plant habit, open and upright canopy
responsiveness to higher density planting, better management and input condition (Daihy èt àl

9. 5
1990). The number of plant required per unit area was one of the prime considerations for
higher biomass production which depends upon the nature of crop, growth habits, branching and
environment. This number can neither be too small so that all the production potential will not
be utilized, nor can it be too large so that excessive competition will reduce the overall efficiency
of the crop. Manipulation of seed rate and spacing were important factors in achieving required
level of plant density so that plant makes efficiency use of the resources.
2.5.2 ROOT PARAMETER
Singh (1989) report the more numbers of nodules in 45cm row spacing at flowering when
compared with 30cm and 60cm row spacing in chickpea under sandy loam soil. Mane and
Jadhav(1991) noticed more number of nodules per plant and higher nodules dry weight in
chickpea at the lower planting density of 30 m plant when compared to the higher planting
density of 4.5 and 6.5 plants ha-1
under clay soil of prune. Increasing in nodules dry weight per
plant of chickpea was observe with decrease seed rate from 80 kg 60 kg sandy loam soil ( Jat and
Mali 1992). The number of nodules per plant decrease with increase in plant per unit area as per
seed rate in chickpea. The highest number of nodules per plant (74) were recorded in plot
planted at 40kg seed rate, while the number of nodules per plant were significant lower in plot
planted at 80kg or 120kg seed rate as a result of higher planting density. Bejan èt àl (2012)
observed that increased in plant density of chickpea had not influenced any variation in nodules
number, active nodules, nodules fresh and dry weight in North West of Iran.
2.5.3 EFFECT OF PLANT DENSITY ON YIELD OF CHICKPEA
The plant density ranges from 25 to 30 plants m-2 in a ridge-and-furrow system. Tall and erect
cultivars gave high seed yield at a higher plant density (25 to 30 plants m-2) due to their apical
pods (Calcagno et al. 1988) The optimum plant population depends upon the genotype and the
environmental conditions under which the crop is grown. In some regions, a population of 33
plants m-2 appears to be the best (Saxena, 1980) Compact, upright-growing plants responded
better to increased plant density than the spreading type (Singh, 1981). Both too narrow and too
wide spacing do affect grain yields through competition (for nutrients, moisture, air, radiation,
etc) and due to the effect of shading. In the latter case (too wide spacing), yield reduction can
occur due to inefficient utilization of the growth factors. Normally, as population increases yield
also increases proportionally. As plant density increases, the amount of dry matter in vegetative

10. 6
parts also increases. Both the biological and economic yields increase with increasing plant
population up to a certain point and subsequently no addition in biological yield can be obtained
and economic yield decreases. Therefore, the optimum plant population of individual crop
should be worked out under suitable environmental conditions (Singh and Singh, 2002). The
plant population density that produced maximum yield or optimum plant population density of
crops, including chickpea, were affected by genotype, environment and their interaction. A
range of optimum plant population density has therefore, been reported for various chickpea
varieties and environments. A great variation exists in number of plants m-2 for obtaining higher
yield of chickpea. Based on the size of the seed, EARO, 2004 and FDRE, 2010 recommended
that the optimum seed rate for chickpea in Ethiopia ranges from 60-140 kg ha-1.
2.5.4 NUTRIENTS UPTAKE AND SOIL NUTRIENTS STATUS
Successive and significant increase in P levels up to 60 kg P2O5 ha -1 resulted in enhanced grain
and straw yields of chickpea. Application of 60 kg P2O5 ha -1 increased the grain and straw
yields significantly by 27.4 and 24.7 per cent, respectively over the control .The higher level of P
(90 kg P2O5ha -1 ) was statistically at par with 60 kg P2O5 ha -1 in increasing the yield. The
increase in yield of chickpea grain and straw with P application may be due to fact that soil under
study was deficient in available P (9.8 kg ha -1 ). Kumar at al. (2009) also observed an increase
in yield of chickpea with increasing levels of P on phosphorus deficient soils. The yield of
chickpea grain and straw increased significantly by 9.8 and 11.4 per cent, respectively with the
application of 5 kg Zn ha -1 . This might be due to its function as catalyst or stimulant in most of
the physiological and metabolic processes. However, the response was better at lower rate (2.5
kg Zn ha -1 ) application rather than at higher rate. Increase in yield due to application of Zn is
quite obvious, as the soil under study was deficient in available zinc (0.5 mg kg -1 ). Sharma et al.
(2000) and Singh and Ram (2001) also noted a significant response of legumes to Zn applied to
deficient soils. Protein content in chickpea grain and straw increased significantly with
application of phosphorus and zinc individually as well as in combination as compared to control.
The increase in protein content due to Zn addition might be attributed to its involvement in N
metabolism of plants.

11. 7
2.5.5 .NUTRITIONAL CONTENT
The carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin, mineral and dietary fibre are present in chickpea. The
nutritional composition present in chickpea. Chickpea was good source of both proteins and
carbohydrates which constitute around 80% of dry seed mass in total (Hirdyani., 2014). High
protein digestibility, a high quantities of complex carbohydrate (low glycemic index), vitamin
and minerals all are present in chickpea seed (Mittal et al., 2012). The protein content of
chickpea ranges from 18-29%, the fat content is 4-7% and the starch content in between 50-60%
(Boukid., 2021). Important vitamins like riboflavin, thiamin, niacin, folate and the precursor to
vitamin A, β- carotene can be found in abundance in chickpea (Hirdyani., 2014) . It contains low
levels of water-soluble vitamins like riboflavin (B2), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6) and
is a relatively rich source of folic acid. Compared to the pigeon pea and lentils, chickpea have a
lower niacin concentration (Jukanti et al., 2012). Chickpea seed contain minerals such as calcium,
magnesium, phosphorus and particularly potassium (Hirdyani., 2014)

12. 8
3. SUMMARY
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) was the third most important pulse crop in the world after dry
bean and field pea. It was the one of the important cool season food legume crops in Ethiopia
which was mainly grown in Central, Northern and Eastern highland area of the country where
manual rainfall and latitude respectively range from (700-2000mm) and 1400-2300 masl.
In general, production and productivity of the crop was governed by the environmental
condition, genotypic traits and management of the crop. The optimum plant population the
establishment of adequate of plant population is the most important to realize the full yield
potential of the genotype. Chickpea was a valued crop and provide nutritious food for an
expanded world population and would become increasingly important with climatic change.
Production rank was third after bean with the mean annual production of over 10 million tons
with most of the production .Land area devoted to chickpea has increased in recent years and
now stands at an estimated 13.5 million hectares. . Chickpea was generally planted at a density
of 33 plant 30cm row to row spacing and 10cm plant to plant spacing. In some regions, a
population of 33 plants m-2 appears to be the best. ). Both too narrow and too wide spacing do
affect grain yields through competition (for nutrients, moisture, air, radiation, etc) and due to the
effect of shading. The plant population density that produced maximum yield or optimum plant
population density of crops, including chickpea, were affected by genotype, environment and
their interaction. Successive and significant increase in P levels up to 60 kg P2O5 ha -1 resulted
in enhanced grain and straw yields of chickpea. The increase in yield of chickpea grain and straw
with P application may be due to fact that soil under study was deficient in available P.
The carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamin, mineral and dietary fibre are present in chickpea. The
nutritional composition present in chickpea. Important vitamins like riboflavin, thiamin, niacin,
folate and the precursor to vitamin A, β- carotene can be found in abundance in chickpea.

13. 9
4. CONCLUSION
One of the main reasons of low yield of chickpea is improper plant population. Either too low or
high Plant population beyond a certain limit often adversely affects the crop yield. Number of
plants per unit area influences plant size, yield components and ultimately the seed yield. The
use of high plant density in chickpea production decreases soil water evaporation early in the
growing season when plant canopy closure is low. The yield of chickpea can be improved by
planting of optimum density of chickpeas and adequate amount of nutrients fertilizers

14. 10
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Ferial and Esmat 2011. Chickpea seed contain potassium, calcium, magnesium. Sodium, copper,
Iron, and Zinc which makes it nutritionally the best edible pulse crop.

15. 11
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