Abstract

A field study was conducted at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research center station under rain fed condition with the objectives to determine the effect of seed priming for improving chickpea variety productivity and to determine the effectiveness of seed priming treatment and variety on stand establishment. The experimental factors were laid out in RCBD with three replications. The study indicated that all the phenological and growth traits significantly differed as a result of priming treatment and variety. With respect to yield and yield related traits, only seed yield kgha-1, harvest index (%), seeds plant-1 and  seeds pod-1 were significantly affected by the main effect. While, the rest of yield related traits responded differently due to variety alone. However, all variables studied in the field were not significantly affected by the interactions of the main effects.  Improvement made due to main effect hydro and osmopriming was statistically similar for all phenological traits; seeds plant-1 and seeds pod-1 was considerably improved as a result of osmopriming than hydropriming. However, plant height, stand count at emergence and at harvest, seed yield kg ha-1 were substantially increased by 7, 10, 12 and 15%, respectively as a result of water priming over the control. Therefore, from present study, it can be concluded that hydropriming can step-up economical benefit of chickpea growing farmers.

Key words:  Chickpea, hydropriming, osmopriming, productivity, seed priming.