Influence of Sowing Date on Yields of Fresh-harvested Chickpea

Chickpea is the main pulse crop in Israel, covering about 10 000 ha. In order to increase the cultivation area ofthis crop, efforts have been made to develop agro-techniques for the fresh (immature green) harvesting chickpea. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of five sowing dates on the fresh and dry yields of twoimportant Israeli chickpea cultivars, Zehavit and Bar. A field test conducted during the 2007-2008 winter seasonemployed a split-plot design, in which the first and the second factors were sowing date and cultivar, respectively. The fresh yield, percentage of waste, expected fresh yield, intermediate dried yield and final dryyield were calculated for each plot. Cultivar Zehavit was superior to cv. Bar in terms of all of these parameters, except final dry yield. Thus, cv. Zehavit is the better cultivar for production of fresh-harvested chickpea, due toits ability to produce high yields of fresh seed with a lower percentage of waste. Our results indicate that somechickpea cultivars can be commercialized for production of the fresh-harvested crop in semi-arid climates.