Grown as a monoculture, peas (Pisum sativum L.) exhibit severe lodging after flowering and lodging causes yield reductions considerable. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dose (untreated, 25, 50, 75 and 100 g a.i. ha )1 ) and stage (late vegetative, early blooming and early pod filling) of mepiquat chloride (MC) application on the growth, lodging control, seed yield and yield parameters of pea (Pisum sativum L.) under field conditions in Erzurum, Turkey in 2002 and 2003. Application doses of 25, 50, 75 and 100 g a.i. ha )1 significantly reduced stem height by 5.3 %, 7.2 %, 7.5 % and 6.4 % and increased stem width by 7.5 %, 12.7 %, 12.3 % and 15.7 % respectively, when compared with the untreated control, and thereby reduced the tendency of the crop to lodging. Increases of the seed yield under different application doses of MC ranged between 13.7 % and 20.1 % over the untreated control. However, in all parameters investigated, except for stem width, higher application doses of MC gave no clear advantages compared with the application dose of 25 g a.i. ha )1 . Seed yield was also significantly influenced by application stage of MC and application at early blooming stage of crop, MC significantly increased seed yield by 11.4 % and 10.2 % when compared with the late vegetative and the early pod filling stages respectively. Furthermore, the interaction of application dose and stage was significant, and spraying of pea plants with 25 g a.i. -ha )1 MC at early blooming stage has the most beneficial effects on the characters evaluated.