effect of supplementary irrigation and compost application on morphological traits and yield of two chickpea (cicer arietinum) cultivars

to investigate the effects of supplementary irrigation and application of different compost levels on morphological traits, yield and yield components of two chickpea cultivars under dry land conditions, a field experiment was conducted at the research field in khoramabad, iran in 2009-2010. the experiment was split split plot based on randomized complete block design with four levels of irrigation (no irrigation as control, supplementary irrigation at flowering, at grain filling, and at flowering + grain filling stages along) with three levels of compost (0, 10 and 15 t.ha-1 as sub factors) and two chickpea cultivars (greet and filip93-93) as sub-sub factors. results indicated that the highest number of main shoot (3.63), branches (14.61), pod/plant (36.68), seed/plant (39.26), plant height (38.6 cm), 1000 seed weight (291.5 g), grain yield (1688 kg/ha) and biological yield (4898 kg/ha) were obtained from supplementary irrigation at flowering + grain filling stages from greet cultivar. the maximum grain yield was obtained from interaction of supplementary irrigation and application of 15 t.ha-1 compost. due to increase of chickpea cultivar yield under supplementary irrigation and compost in dry farming conditions, therefore such plant is recommended for dry farming at khoramabad region.