Inoculation Approach to Legume Crops and Their Production Assessment in Pakistan - A Review

Abstract

Abstract:In Pakistan the legumes are grown mostly in rain-fed areas of marginal lands where soil fertility and native rhizobial populations are low. The result is lower yield of legumes compared with other countries. The experiments carried out by the scientists of National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad and other research institutes, have shown significant yield increases of legumes by inoculation with appropriate rhizobium strains. In these experiments the highest yield increase was noted in case of soybean ranging 30-196 percent. Yield increase of chickpea and peas was generally in the range of 20-40 percent, whereas increase in case of other food legumes i.e., lentil, mung and mash was 10-20 percent. Although these yield increases are quite reasonable, the adoption of inoculant is almost negligible, not increasing beyond 20,000 ha per annum. The demand from farmers has not increased. The farmers and field workers are needed to be educated with the technology in order to enhance use of inoculants. The inoculant production in the country is far below than required but it could be easily increased many fold provided its demand is created. Also, field worker/farmers are not properly educated in their use. There is a strong need for the private sector to develop large-scale production facilities and supply of proper rhizobial inoculants for the various legumes grown in Pakistan.

Growth and Yield Response of Five Elite Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) Genotypes to Varying Levels of Potassium

“…source for nitrogen fixation in soil, nitrogen fixation varies from -100 kg N ha -1 (Alam et al, 2010). In Pakistan, grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is grown as a leguminous Rabi crop on both the irrigated and non-irrigated land and ranked as third significant grain vegetable (Aslam et al, 2000;Kazmi et al, 2002), containing 20-22% protein with lysine in its different cultivars ( Jabeen et al, 1988). Its yield in Pakistan is very low due to improper irrigation, imbalance fertilization, poor weed management, coupled with diseases and insect-pest infestation (Khan et al, 2013).…”

GIS Based Universal Soil Erosion Estimation in District Chakwal Punjab, Pakistan

“…Only 8% of the cultivated land is irrigated through wells, tube wells and canals. Mainly wheat is grown in the district, however maize, groundnut, chickpea, sorghum, millet, canola and guar are also cultivated in patches (Balouch et al, 2016;Akmal et al, 2014;Government of Punjab, 2013;Khan et al, 2002;Aslam et al, 2000). Soils in district Chakwal are predominantly light textured sandy clay loom and sandy loom types.…”

Role of Resilient Soil Microbial Consortia on Growth and Yield Attributes of Chickpea under Water Stress

“…Many experiments have been designed in all over the world to highlight plant-bacteria symbiotic relationship and to derive efficient strains for sustainable crop production in desiccated area (FAOSTAT, 2020). Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crop and rich in grain protein which is a leading part of human diet (Aslam et al, 2000). The worldwide very low chickpea production (17.19 million tons) is reported from total cultivated area of 17.81 million hectares (Kantar et al, 2007).…”