THE YIELD AND QUALITY PROPERTIES OF CHICKPEA SEEDS (CICER ARIETINUM L.) AFFECTED BY HARVEST TIMES

Abstract

1 Agricultural Machinery and Technologies Engineering Department, Dicle University, Diyarbakır, Turkey ABSTRACT. Harvesting of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) seeds at right time of maturity is one of the important issues because pod dropping and shattering is a major problem during harvest. Also, the physical properties of chickpea seeds can be affected by harvest time. For this purpose, a field experiment was carried out to examine the effects of harvest times after physiological maturity on the seed yield per plant and the seed quality properties in chickpea production. The treatments used in the experiment consisted of five harvest times, which chickpea pods were harvested at physiological maturity (H1) and 5, 10, 15, and 20 days after physiological maturity (H2, H3, H4 and H5, respectively). The physiological maturity time (R7) was considered as the stage that leaves start to yellow and 50% of pods are yellow. Moisture content, dimension properties, hundred seed weight, true density, bulk density and porosity and seed yield per plant was determined in the study. The results showed that all measured variables were affected by harvest time. The true density and porosity increased with delayed harvest time. But, the other measured variables decreased when harvest was delayed.