evaluation of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.) seed inoculation with rhizobium strains and plant promoting rhizobacteria (pgpr) on growth indices and photoassimilate partitioning under rainfed and irrigated conditions

this experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of rhizobium strains and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (pgpr) on dry matter partitioning and some growth parameters of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.) arman cultivar. this research was conducted as split plot based on complete random block design at zanjan university research farm. irrigation levels (optimum irrigation during season growth and no irrigation during growth period) were set as main plots and fertilizer level (control or no application chemical and biological fertilizer, 50kg/ha urea, seed inoculation with mesorhizobium ciceri strain of swri-3, seed inoculation with mesorhizobium ciceri strain swri-17, seed inoculation with pgpr, co-inoculation with rhizobium strains swri-3+swri-17 and co-inoculation with all biofertilizers, swri-3+swri-17+pgpr were sets as subplots. based on results, swri-17 and swri-17+swri-3+ pgpr caused more allocation of chickpea photoassimilate to pods and less allocation of photoassimilates to stems and leaves under drought stress. also, because swri-17+swri-3+pgpr allocated more photoassimilate to leaves under irrigated condition, caused effective solar irradiance absorption, produce maximum seed yield. finally our data showed that, sees co-inoculation with rhizobium strains and pgpr resulted more seed yield in comparison with control (no fertilizer usage) or urea fertilizer application under both irrigated and rainfed conditions.