Abstract

This research was conducted between 2014-2016 on five different chickpea varieties (İnci, Seçkin, Hasanbey, Sarı98, Sezenbey) cultivated using five different sowing dates (30th October, 20th November, 10th December, 30th December, 20th January) and the impact of different Sowing Dates on yield and some qualities features were analysed accordingly. The study had taken the Seed Yield, Number of Seeds per Plant, Average Seed Weight and Hydration Capacity of Seeds into consideration. The dry farming technique was used for the two consecutive year trials and no irrigation was performed other than the first year given for germination. In the first year, the precipitation was above the regional averages, yet very low in the second year. In this study, the sowing dates and yields were varied depending on the varieties, and in both years, the highest values were generated in the first sowing period (30thOctober, 20th Novemberand 15th December). Among the varieties used in this research, Sezenbey had the highest yield by 405 kg/da and 61 kg/da on both normal precipitation amount (10th December sowing period) and dry year (30th Octobersowing period) respectively. On the other hand, Hasanbey variety was considered as the genotype with the lowest yield by 35 kg/da and 11kg/da on both years during 20th January sowing period respectively. Out of the yield components, the number of seeds per plant has become the feature that affected the yield the most and was affected from climate and sowing dates. Seed size has affected from the sowing date and drought less than the others. The seed size and hydration capacity as the quality features had occurred the most on Sarı98 and Sezenbey varieties.

INTRODUCTION

The fast increase of world population causes serious problems in terms of insufficient food for people both in quantity and quality; therefore, various health problems arise due to hunger and malnutrition. Cereals are one of the leading staple food generally in the world and particularly in mild climate countries. But they are low in protein and contain low amounts of essential amino acids that can not be produceed in the human body; hence they cannot meet the protein need of humans by itself (Açıkgöz,1995). The deficiency may be balanced with either animal origin food such as meet, eggs and milk as well as pulses. Chickpeas is one of the protein rich pulses (Akdağ and Şehirali 1995).According to Jukanti et al. (2012), the protein content of chickpea seeds vary between 16-30% depending on the varieties and cultivation conditions (unhulled seeds 17-22%, hulled seeds 25-29%) and the protein quality is better than the other pulses as well as higher mineral and fibre content.Düzdemir (2016) compared the summer and autumn sowings in a study conducted with 6 varieties and analyzed the correlations between the plant caharcteristics and yields. Topalak ...