Standardization of Management Strategy for Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under Different Levels of Crop Residue Retention in Conservation Agriculture

A field experiment was conducted at ICAR- Indian Institute of Soil Science (IISS), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) to evaluate the impact of different levels of crop residue retention and herbicidal weed control measures on weed dynamics, crop growth and yield characteristics of chickpea crop under conservation agriculture. Data were recorded on weed study, crop growth and yield characters of chickpea. Results indicate that pre-emergence herbicide application treatments (H1 and H2) were found to be effective in reducing weed density at 30 DAS (63.56%) as compared to post emergence treatments which were applied after recording observations on weed density at 30 DAS. It has been observed that post emergence application of imazethapyr @ 25 g a.i. ha-1 was found to restrict crop growth for a period of 10-15 days as compared to pre-emergence treatments. The results on crop growth and yield parameters revealed that higher residue retention level treatment (90% crop residue retention) recorded significantly higher plant height (54.81cm), dry matter plant-1 (18.39 g plant-1), number of pods plant-1 (36.46), seeds plant-1 (47.11), seed yield (1202 kg ha-1) and straw yield (2916 kg ha-1) as compared to no crop residue retention.