Agronomic importance of first development of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under semi-arid conditions: I. Effect of powder humic acid.

Due to slow growth and weakness of the first development of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) plant could not combatted with weeds and easily get caught up by Ascochyta blight (Ascochyta rabiei (Pass) Labr.) disease; esp. under the late sowing and semi-arid conditions, due to effect of biotic and abiotic stress factors, significant yield losses could be arised. To be able to avoid from them is only possible to accelerate the first development of this crop. So, one of the best solutions is to use of "soil conditioner" chemical compounds such as HA at optimum dose. With this aim, it was established in order to find out the optimum dose range of HA. Three doses (D0 = 0 g, D1 = 100 g and D2 = 200 g), four varieties (V1 = Er-99, V2 = Gökçe, V3 = ILC-482 and V4 = Australia) and five yield components Plant Height (PH), First pod height (FPH), Number of Branches per Plant (NBP), Number of Pods per Plant (NPP) and Number of seeds per pod (NSP) were investigated. Obtained results are: Recommended (Optimum) HA doses and interactions were ranged and found as (V4 > V2 = V3 > V1); (D2 > D0 = D1); (D1 x V4) for the PH and FPH, (D2 x V3) for the NBP and (D1 x V3) for the NPP, respectively. It was concluded that when the recommended HA dose applied, it was seen that the first development has been clearly accelerated and increased under the semi-arid conditions in terms of investigated traits and cultivars.