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Proceedings of the Workshop on Ascochyta Blight and Winter Sowing ofChickpeas (Saxena, M.C
and Singh. K.B.. eds.). ICARDA. 4-7 May 1981, Aleppo. Syria
Nodulation Aspects of Winter-Planted Chickpeas
R. ISLAM
Microbiologist, ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria
Unlike faba beans and lentils, chickpeas are normally grown in Syria and in
several other West Asian countries as a spring-planted crop. Efforts are currently
being made to introduce chickpea as a winter crop because )f higher yield
potential than the spring-planted crop. Within the framework '"fresearch to
improve the productivity of winter chickpeas, studies were initiated to examine
the different nodulation aspects of winter-planted chickpeas at ICARDA farm at
Tel Hadya in northern Syria. Some results are presented below.
Response to Inoculation with Different Strains of Rhizobium
Inoculation experiments were conducted during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 growing
seasons mainly to identify effective strains of Rhizobium suitable for winterplanted
chickpeas. Similar experiments were planted in spring season also, in the
adjoining part of the field, in order to compare the performance of individual
strains of Rhizobium during the winter and spring seasons.
In the 1978-79 growing season, the inoculation response to eight strains of
Rhizobium (IC-26, 3889, Ca-7, Cp-20b, Cp-14b, Cp-5b, Cp-23b and Cp-12) was
examined in a loca! kabuli type chickpea (cv. ILC 1929). In the 1979-80 growing
season the inoculation response to eight strains of Rhizobium (IC-26, Cp-5b, IC­
47, Cp-26a, Cp-32b, Cp-35a and Cp-37a) was examined again in the same host
cultivar. Experiments were conducted under rainfed condition and the seasonal
precipitation was 240 and 426 mm, respectively, in two seasons.
Plants were sampled at different stages of growth to assess nodulation and
drymatter production before final harvest for grain yield was made. Nodulation
and total drymatter production data obtained at early flowering stages are given
in Table 1. The data for the inoculated treatments represent a mean for the
effective strains of Rhizobiurn used for each of the experiments.
In general Rhizobium inoculation considerably increased the number of nod­
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