A pot culture experiment was conducted in sixty acid soils (India) to establish the critical limits of Zn for predicting response of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) to zinc application. The DTPA-extractable Zn in 60 acid soils ranged from 1.82 to 2.58 mg kg-1 and the total Zn in chickpea ranged from 12.50 to 20.47 mg kg-1 . The critical limits of zinc in soils and plants are 2.68 mg kg-1 and 12.26 mg kg-1 respectively. The soil available Zn was positively correlated with pH (r=0.68*), OC (r=0.243**), available N (r=0.236**), available P (r=0.364*) and also positive and significant correlations with sand (r=.085**), clay (r=.052**). The results revealed that, the mean distribution of zinc in surface soils of different villages recorded as 2.28 mg kg-1 which is deficient compared to critical limits in soils as 2.68 mg kg-1 . Application of Zinc (10 kg ha-1 recorded the highest yield in chickpea along with vermicompost 5 t ha-1 ) shows significant results on chickpea.
