Abstract:
Chickpea is one of the most widely grown pulse crops in the world. In Africa, Ethiopia is the first and the largest chickpea producer country, contributing 40.53% of the continent’s total chickpea production. One of the reasons of low yield of chickpea in Ethiopia is the use of inappropriate plant population by farmers. Thus, this field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of inter-row spacing on yield and yield components of chickpea varieties in west belesa district, North western Ethiopia. The experiment was conducted using factorial arrangement of three chickpea varieties (Habru, Ejeri and Local) and four inter-row spacing (15 cm, 20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm) in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. All agronomic data were collected based on the standard protocols and subjected to analysis of variance using R software and for significant means among the treatment were assessed using the least significant difference at 5% level of probability. The results showed that Local variety was the earliest variety than Ejeri and Habru. And the narrow inter-row spacing (15cm) earlier matured than the wider inter-row spacing (40cm). The tallest plant height of chickpea (47.6) was observed in Habru chickpea variety. The highest number of branches per plant (14), hundred seed weight (30g), grain yield (3750 kg ha-1) and dry biomass yield (8180.7 kg ha–1) were found from the widest inter-row spacing (40 cm) with Habru variety. Therefore, according to this result and its applicability, farmers in the study area are recommended to use inter-row spacing (40 cm) with Habru variety. However, this result was observed based on one season experiment in a single site, hence further investigation on the selection of best inter-row spacing and variety for chickpea production in the study area should be studied.
