Effect of iron on yield , quality and nutrient uptake of chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L . )

The role of micronutrients in crops is well known in the present context. Research already proved the micronutrient deficiency in various crops as well as in the human beings and which results as drastic reduction in crop yield. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important grain legume crop in the World, and being a rich and cheap source of protein can help people to improve the nutritional quality of their diets. It is also the premier food legume crop in India, ranks first among all pulse crops. Iron (Fe) play vital role in several enzymatic reactions and metabolism in plants. A little amount of Fe enhanced the chickpea yield and quality. Application of Fe fertilizer for crop production also reduces the malnourishment in human and animals. At present, more emphasis is on biofortification aspect through agronomic as well as breeding techniques. Application of Fe fertilizers in chickpea crop production may be a better sustainable option to overcome these problems in the future. This review article described the Fe role in yield, quality and nutrient uptake by chickpea.


INTRODUCTION
The word' micronutrient' represent some essential nutrients that are required in very small quantities for the growth of plants and microorganisms.Essential micronutrients for plant growth are iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), boron (B), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni) and chlorine (Cl).Amongst these eight micronutrients, the content of Fe in soil as well as in plants is the highest than even P and S contents (Tisdale et al., 1985).It plays a crucial role in enzyme like cytochrome oxidase, catalase and peroxidase.Although most of the Fe on the earth crust is in the form of Fe 3+ , the Fe 2+ form is physiologically more significant for plants.This form is relatively soluble, but is readily oxidized to Fe 3+ , which then precipitates.The major natural source Fe are hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ), goethite (FeOOH), magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ), pyrite (FeS 2 ) and olivine [(Mg, Fe) 2 SiO 4 ] .The total contents in the surface of soil is 4000 to 2,73,000 ppm whereas Fe available content in surface soil is 0.36 *Corresponding author.E-mail: kkpankaj.agricos@gmail.comAuthor(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License  (Katyal and Rattan, 1995).
Table 1.Extent of micronutrient deficiencies in soils of various states (Singh, 2009).

Name of State
Percent sample deficient (PSD) to 174 ppm DTPA-CaCl 2 extractable.Its deficiency is a limiting factor for plant growth and affected crop yield adversely (Kobayashi and Nishizawa, 2012).Symptoms include leaves turning yellow or brown in the margins between the veins which may remain green, while young leaves may appear to be bleached.It is present at high quantities in soils, but its availability to plants is usually very low, and therefore Fe deficiency is a common problem (Nozoye et al., 2011).The Fe deficiency in soil was reported in early sixties (Katyal and Rattan, 1995); and found in most of the state of India (Figure 1 and Table 1).Excessive application of Zn, Mn and Cu induces Fe deficiency in crops.The rood exudates enhanced the mobilization of in situ Fe for plant uptake (Xiong et al., 2013;Ueno et al., 2007).Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crop in India.It significantly contributed in protein requirement of poor peoples.It is a highly nutritious pulse and places third in the importance list of the food legumes that are cultivated throughout the world.It contains 25% proteins, which is the maximum provided by any pulse and 60% carbohydrates (Singh et al., 1993).India is the largest producer of this pulse contributing to around 70% of the world's total production.Fe plays the crucial role in enhancing crop yield.This review paper described the role of Fe in chickpea production.Bhanavase et al. (1994) reported that the soil application of ferrous sulphate at 25 kg ha -1 to soybean crop increased nodulation, nodules dry weight per plant and dry matter accumulation as compared to control.Mundra and Bhati (1994) conducted a field experiment in loamy sand soil and they concluded that the application of Fe through ferrous sulphate at 10 kg ha -1 significantly increased the number of branches per plant, dry matter accumulation per plant and nodules per plant in cowpea over control.Shukla and Shukla (1994) at Allahabad, India applied 25 and 50 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 to chickpea crop which resulted in increased number of nodules per plant, dry weight of root nodules, leg haemoglobin content of root nodules and rate of N 2 fixation as compared to control treatment.Singh et al. (1998) working on mung bean under clay loam soil of Kanpur found that the plant height, branches per plant, dry matter partitioned by stem and leaves as well as the total dry weight.Mung bean did not differ with soil applied 15 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 and foliar applied FeSO 4 (0.5%) compared to control treatment at 40 day after sowing.Mahriya and Meena (1999) conducted a field trial at Jobner (Rajasthan), and they concluded that all the growth characters viz., plant height, number of branches per plant, dry matter production per meter row length were increased with the application of 4 kg Fe ha -1 in cowpea.Balachander et al. (2003) reported that the application of Fe at 2 kg ha -1 through ferrous sulphate significantly increased the number and weight of nodules, biomass production, plant height and grain yield of black gram over control.Thapu et al. (2003) concluded that the application of micronutrients like Fe (as ferrous sulphate at 0.4%), Mn, Cu, Zn significantly increased the growth characters in pea.Kumawat et al. (2006) conducted an experiment at Bikaner in mung bean and reported that the application of 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 gave the higher chlorophyll content in leaves, shoot weight and root nodules weight over control.Nenova (2006) revealed that pea plants were supplied with different amount of Fe, ranging from complete deficient to toxicity, higher plant growth, chlorophyll and carotenoid content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters were recorded at 7 days intervals from day 20 to day 91.Sahu et al. (2008) reported that the application of FeSO 4 at 2 kg ha -1 significantly increased the growth characters over control in chickpea.Kumar et al. (2009) conducted an experiment at Kanpur and reported that the branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod and test weight significantly increased with levels of Fe up to 10 kg Fe ha -1 over control in chickpea.Singh and Varun (1989) conducted a pot experiment on alluvial sandy loam soil with cowpea and concluded that the application of 0 to 20 mg kg -1 Fe increased the yield components.Gawad et al. (1991) reported that the application of 25 or 50 mg kg -1 Fe as ferrous sulphate along with 15.5, 31.0 or 46.5 kg P 2 O 5 feddon -1 significantly increased the yield attributes in chickpea crop.Mundra and Bhati (1991) reported that the application of 20 kg FeSO 4 along with Rhizobium inoculation increased the seed yield in cowpea over control.Kumpawat and Manohar (1994) reported that the application of 20 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 significantly increased the dry weight of nodules, seed protein content and seed yield increased over control in gram.Kumpawat and Manohar (1994) reported that the seed yield of gram was increased by the application of 30 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 and 20 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 along with seed inoculation over control.Singh et al. (1995) observed that the application of Fe at 5 kg ha -1 increased seed yield of french bean by 26% over control.Sakal et al. (1996) opined that the application of 1% ferrous sulphate + 0.2% citric acid solution as foliar spray increased grain yield of black gram and chickpea over control.Singh et al. (1998) reported that the soil application of 15 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 significantly increased grain and straw yield of mung bean by 9.78 and 11.81% over 0.1% FeSO 4 foliar treated plots.Further yield attributes were also increased significantly with 15 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 over foliar applied FeSO 4 and control treatment.Sawires (2001) reported that the seed yield of gram was increased by the application of 20 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 along with seed inoculation over control.Gupta et al. (2002) conducted a field experiment at Kota (Rajasthan) and results revealed that the application of Fe either through soil (2.2 and 5.0 mg kg -1 ) or foliar (0.5% FeSO 4 two spray) increased grain yield of mung bean over control.Yadav et al. (2002) reported that the seed and stover yield of mung bean significantly increased with the application of 4 kg Fe ha -1 over control.Balachander et al. (2003) reported that the application of Fe at 2 kg ha -1 through ferrous sulphate significantly increased the number and weight of nodules, biomass production, plant height and grain yield of black gram over control.Thapu et al. (2003) observed that the application of micronutrients like Fe (as FeSO 4 at 0.4%), Mn, Cu, Zn significantly increased the grain yield in pea.Salam et al. (2004) conducted a field experiment at Raipur, Chhatisgarh and concluded that the seed yield of urdbean under application of FeSO 4 at 2-20 kg Fe ha -1 was maximum over control.Mevada et al. (2005) conducted a field experiment on sandy loam soil to study the effect the application of micronutrients (Zn, B, Mo, Fe) on the performance of urdbean and reported that the maximum grain yield (1180 kg ha -1 ) was obtained under the application of chelated Fe (1 kg ha -1 ) over control (924 kg ha -1 ).Kumawat et al. (2006) observed that the soil application of Fe at 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 recorded significantly higher seed and straw yield of summer mung bean as compared to control.Sahu et al. (2008) reported that the application of FeSO 4 at 2 kg ha -1 along with biofertilizer inoculation gave the highest grain yield (1473 kg ha -1 ) and straw yield (1423 kg ha -1 ) as compared to control in chickpea.Kumar et al. (2009) conducted an experiment at Kanpur and results revealed that the application of 10 kg Fe ha -1 enhanced the grain yield of chickpea by 17.3% over control.Similar trend in straw yield response was also recorded.Sharma et al. (2010) reported that the application of chelated Fe (1 or 2 kg ha -1 ), all the yield contributing characteristics viz., number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and 100 seeds weight were significantly increased in pigeon pea crop.

Effect of Iron on yield and yield attributes
Effect of iron on nutrient content, uptake and quality Mundra and Bhati (1991) conducted a field experiment at Jobner (Rajasthan), revealed that the application of 10 and 20 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 significantly reduce P and Mn concentration in seed and its uptake but increased the uptake of N and Fe compared to control.Singh and Tiwari (1992) reported that the concentration and plant uptake of Zn were increased by Zn application while plant concentration of P, Fe and Cu were generally decreased due to Zn application in chickpea crop.Patel et al. (1993) conducted a field trial on calcareous soils of Gujarat revealed that foliar spray of one per cent FeSO 4 + 0.1 per cent citric acid and 2 per cent ferric citrate solution significantly increased concentration of Fe in groundnut leaves by 160.78 and 166.00% at 60 days of crop over control.Both the treatments were at per in their effect and significantly reduces the concentrations of P at all stages of crop growth.Whereas, in another experiment results revealed the foliar spray of 3% FeSO 4 to groundnut increased uptake of N, K, and Fe as compared to foliar spray of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0% FeSO 4 and soil applied FeSO 4 at 25 and 50 kg ha -1 (Pande et al., 1993).Kumpawat and Manohar (1994) reported that the seed protein content of gram was increased by the application of 30 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 and 20 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 along with seed inoculation over control.Shukla and Shukla (1994) observed that increase in Fe and P concentration in seeds of chickpea with increasing levels of FeSO 4 up to 50 kg ha -1 over control.Singh et al. (1995) reported that the uptake of N by French bean crop increased with increasing application of Fe up to 5 kg ha -1 but uptake of P remained unaffected.Mahriya and Meena (1999) conducted a field trial at Jobner (Rajasthan), and they concluded that all the growth characters as well as protein content in seed were increased with the application of 4 kg Fe ha -1 in cowpea.Yadav et al. (2002) reported that the protein content in seeds increased significantly with application of 30 kg P 2 O 5 ha -1 and 4 kg Fe ha -1 over their lower levels in mung bean.The Fe content and uptake in seed and stover increased significantly with the application of 6 kg Fe ha -1 but decreased the content and uptake of phosphorus.Kumawat et al. (2006) observed that the application of 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 to summer mung bean increased the activities of the catalase, guaiacol peroxidase synthesis of chlorophyll and active Fe content of green leaves over lower doses of FeSO 4 and controlled treatment.While on calcareous soils of western Rajasthan, Kumawat et al. (2006) noted that soil application of 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 significantly increased Fe concentration in green leaves of mung bean as compared to control, further N, P, K and S uptake by grain and straw also increased due to 25 kg FeSO 4 ha -1 compared to control.Sahu et al. (2008) reported that the application of FeSO 4 at 2 kg ha -1 along with biofertilizer inoculation gave the highest grain yield (1473 kg ha -1 ) and nutrient uptake with Rhizobium + PSB inoculation compared to control in chickpea.Kumar et al. (2009) reported that the uptake of P and Fe by grain and straw increased significantly by application of varying levels of P and Fe up to 50 kg P 2 O 5 and 10 kg Fe ha -1 over control in chickpea.Sharma et al. (2010) reported that the application of chelated Fe (1 or 2 kg ha -1 ), all the yield contributing characteristics as well as protein content in seed were significantly increased in pigeon pea crop.

Conclusions
Chickpea is one of the leading pulse crop of India, contributing larger portion of dietary protein.But last few years, use of Fe fertilizers showed the higher yield.Application of Fe fertilizer enhanced the quality as well as chickpea yield.Spread the awareness of Fe fertilizer use in crop production by government and non government organizations (NGOs), a potential strategy to enhance the crop yield.More initiative should be taken by research institute, so that Fe plays a vital role in sustainable chickpea production in future.