Época de plantio de grão-de-bico em Montes Claros, Minas Gerais: produtividade e qualidade de sementes

The chickpea is a legume that stands out for its nutritional characteristics with an important role in the diet of millions of people worldwide. Although the Brazilian consumption is small, the production in the country is insufficient to meet the consumer market, having necessity of import it from other countries. In Brazil, works have ever realized evidenced that the country has a high productive potential, however, there are little information on viability of seeds, planting time, cultivation conditions and crop development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the productive performance and the quality of the seeds of the cultivar of chickpea 'BRS Cicero' under irrigated system, in function of the planting time and the site of experiment in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais. The experiments were conducted in the city of Montes Claros at Site 1 (630m altitude) and Site 2 (760m altitude). At each site was made planting in three seasons with five replications. The plantings were held on the following dates: Site 1 (22/05/2013 - season 1), (20/06/2013 - season 2) and (26/07/2013 - season 3) and Site 2 (05/06/2013 - season 1), (26/06/2013 - season 2) and (24/07/2013 - season 3). Were evaluated: plant height, plant weight, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant, number of empty pods, number of pods with one grain, number of pods with two or more grains, harvest index, weight of 100 seeds and productivity. For the physiological and sanitary quality of the seeds were evaluated vigor, germination and germination speed index. Analysis of variance was made according to the procedures for joint analysis of experiments, considering the factors "planting seasons" and "experiment site" in the SAEG program 9.1. We used the Tukey test at 5% probability to compare means. On site 2, the altitude, soil and climatic conditions, provided a greater production with productivity varying from 2000 to 4000 t ha -1. The best soil-climate conditions on site 2 also favored a better growth and development of plants, which allowed that the same submitted larger sizes with higher quantity of branches, higher harvest index and better physiological quality with the more vigorous seeds. The non-pathogenic fungi found in the seeds, even being considered saprophytes, caused damage, affecting the sanitary quality of the same. The best planting time of cultivar 'BRS Cicero ' under irrigated system at soil-climate conditions of the city of Montes Claros - MG is the month of June and this region presents productive potential for production of this vegetable.