Reducing effects of drought stress by application of Humic acid, Mycorrhiza and Rhizobium on chickpea

ABSTRACT: Among the environmental stresses, drought stress is one of the important factors that influence on the physiological characteristic of the crops under rain-fed conditions. As regards, in Iran the most area of the Chickpea is rain-fed, so, using of the biological agents, with once performance supplemental irrigation during growth of this plant can be effective in improving the nutritional status of the chickpea. So that, a field experiment was conducted as split-factorial based on Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications, at the Experimental Farm at Campus of Agriculture and Natural Resources of Razi University in 2010-11. The main plots consisted of the supplemental irrigation at time of the flowering and non-use of supplemental irrigation and sub-plots were use and non-use of the Mycorrhiza, Rhizobium and Humic acid as factorial. The results showed that, the effect of the supplemental irrigation on contents of the chlorophyll (a, b and total), soluble sugar and leaf area of the chickpea was significant. Also, the effect of the humic acid was significant on the leaf area and soluble sugar but the Rhizobium only was effective on the contents of the leaf chlorophyll. The Mycorrhiza had no effect on the traits. Also the interaction effects between treatments were not significant on the traits. Overall, application of the supplemental irrigation with use of biological and symbiosis agents (Humic acid and Rhizobium), can be effective in improving physiological traits of the chickpea.