Effects of Glycine Betaine and Salicylic Acid Foliar Application on Yield and Yield Components of two Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Cultivars under Rainfed Conditions

Chickpea as one of the most promissing crop under dry farming in Razan, Hamadan where it is often confronted with terminal drought of growing season. Finding strategies to reduce the effects of terminal droughts of chickpea under dryland conditions in this area would be very beneficial. To evaluate the effects of foliar application of glycine betaine (GB) and salicylic acid (SA) on yield and yield components of two chickpea cultivars under rainfed condition, a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was conducted at Razan town of Hamedan province in 2017- 2018 year. In this experiment, treatments were the use of distilled water as control, three levels of glycine betaine (200, 400 and 600 mM) and three levels of salicylic acid (250, 500 and 750 µM) on two cultivars of chickpea (Hashem and Saral). The results showed that foliar applications of plants with GB and SA resulted in significant effect on all traits under study, except number of seed in pod. The highest of seed yield was observed in Hashem (168.05 g.m2) and Saral (178.55 g.m2) cultivars with foliar application of 600 mM glycine betaine. The treatment of 600 mM of glycine betaine increased seed yield of Hashem and Saral cultivars by 17.6 and 18.5 percents, respectively. There were significant differences between the two cultivars under study. Maximum of number of seed per plant, seed yield, biological yield and harvest index were belonged to Saral cultivar, while plant height, weight of 100 seed and percent of protein seed observed in Hashem cultivur. According to the results of this study, it can be concluded that the application of glycine betaine on yield and yield components of chickpea under rainfed conditions was more effective than using salicylic acid. It can be said that foliar application of chickpea with GB and SA would improve the performance of chickpea cultivars and rainfed conditions. Futher studies are sudgested to substantiate the results.