Thermal indices and thermal use efficiencies for suitable sowing time of chickpea under coastal agro-ecosystem of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during rabi 2018 on vertisols of Agriculture college, Bapatla to work out the thermal indices and thermal use efficiencies and to study the performance of chickpea varieties grown under different Standard Meteorological Weeks. Higher values of all agroclimatic/weather health indices viz., GDD, HTU, PTU, PTI, TPR, HUE, HtUE and PtUE were recorded with 2nd fortnight of October (44th SMW) sowing irrespective of the varieties. Among the varieties NBeG-119 (V3) took maximum days to attain different phenophases and recorded the optimum values of all agroclimatic/weather health indices. These weather health indices were found to be optimum for all the varieties to produce maximum potential yields.