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Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a very drought-tolerant, nitrogen-fixing, cool season crop that tolerates heat during fruiting and ripening.  It is grown as a cool season annual in a broad belt through the Mediterranean region to the subtropical and tropical regions of Asia, Europe, Central, and  South America. The main use of chickpeas is as a pulse prepared as dahl or flour, but the immature green pods and tender shoots are also used as vegetables.



  1. Chickpea is a very drought-tolerant, nitrogen-fixing, cool season crop that tolerates heat during fruiting and ripening. It is grown as a cool season annual in a broad belt through the Mediterranean region to the subtropical and tropical regions of Asia, Europe, Central, and South America. The...
  2. 2010-07-20 Looking for a nutritious legume that thrives in dry, cool conditions? You might want to tryCicer arietinum, referred to as chickpea and also by many other common names such as garbanzo, gram and bengal gram. Chickpea is noted for drought tolerance. It will produce a crop with an annual rainfall...
  3. General description and special characteristics – One of the oldest cultivated legumes on record, chickpea is a key ingredient in such well-known Asian and Middle-Eastern foods as humus, falafel, and Burmese (Shan) tofu. Chickpea is grown in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions. Two types...
  4. 1992-07-19 We all know that legumes such as these two plants add nitrogen to the soil. Now scientists at ICRISAT in India have shown that they make available more phosphates. They do not add phosphate to the soil, but rather break up phosphate compounds in such a manner that phosphate that was already...
  5. 1995-10-19 Chickpea leaves and pods exude extremely acidic (pH 2) droplets which repel most pests from attacking the plant. But recently the pod borer, which eats the contents of the pods, has become tolerant to the acid and has devastated crops in Asia.