Effect of Sowing Date and Plant Spacing on Yield and Yield Components of Dry Field Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Under Normal Irrigation at Dry lands. South Omdurman Region, Sudan

A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive winter seasons (2015/2016 and 2016/2017) at the Demonstration Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture – Omdurman Islamic University (Fetahab), to study effect of sowing date and plant spacing on yield and yield components of Dry Field Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) at South Omdurman Region. Three sowing dates were investigated (3rd wk of October, 1st and 14th November). Also three plant spacing were used (10, 15 and 20cm) between plants. The treatments of two factors arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replicates. Yield and yield components studied were days to start and to 50% flowering, number of pods/ plant, number of seeds per pod, 100-seed weight, seed yield per plant and seed yield per unit area. Results showed that, days to start and to 50% flowering were significantly reduced for November sowing date (beginning and mid-November) compared with October sowing date for both seasons. Also these sowing dates reported a significantly higher mean of number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod and seed yield per plant in the first season. On the other hand, plant spacing did not significantly affect for any yield components attribute; however, the wide space (20 and 15cm) achieved the higher values for these parameters than the narrow one. Also, it was observed that, the interaction between sowing date and plant spacing did not significantly affect neither growth attribute nor yield and yield components for both seasons. However, number of branches per plant during 12th wk of the 2nd season was affected by this interaction.