Abstract
Maize is among the leading cereals in production globally and an important potential food security crop in Ethiopia. However, its productivity is very low mainly due to low soil fertility and plant stands per area. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted to determine the effect of NP fertilizer and plant density at Jimma and BunoBedele Zone, Southwestern Ethiopia during 2016-2018 main cropping seasons. The experiment had four nitrogen and phosphorus rates (P 2 O 5 ); 69/52, 92/69, 115/86 and 138/104 kg ha -1 ; blended NPSZnB fertilizer (150 kg ha -1 +140 kg ha -1 urea top dressed) and four plant density; 44,444, 53,333, 66,666, and 88,888. Each treatment was assigned to each plot in split plot design in which fertilizer assigned to sub plot and plant density assigned to main plot.Data on the yield and yield components were subjected to ANOVA using SAS version 9.3. The highest grain yield 7566.2 kg ha -1 and above ground biomass 15.07 ton ha -1 were recorded from 138/104 N/P 2 O 5 fertilizer followed by grain yield 7182 kg ha -1 and above ground biomass19.94 ton ha -1 by 66,666 plant ha -1 . The highest net benefit 35,050.18 and 37,220.6 ETB were obtained from 138/104 kg ha -1 N/P 2 O 5 and plant density of 53,333 (75*25cm). Therefore, it is advisable for farmers in the study area and adjacent woredas’ with similar agro-ecologies, a plant density of 53,333 plant ha -1 (75 x 25cm a plant hill -1 or 75 x 50 cm two plants hill -1 ) in complement with N/P 2 O 5 fertilizer rate of 92/69 kg ha -1 can be recommended. Keywords : Grain yield, inorganic fertilizer and plant population DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-01 Publication date: June 30 th 2020
Highlights
Like any other tropical countries, most cropping systems in Ethiopia are traditional and crop bases are complex, vary across agro-ecologies and diverse according to cultural food needs of resource-poor farmers
These variations in morphology may lead to different planting density to reach the maximum yield potentials
Declining soil fertility aggravated the challenge of agriculture to meet the world’s increasing demand for food in a sustainable way and the variations in morphology of the maize crop lead to different planting density to reach at maximum yield
Summary
Like any other tropical countries, most cropping systems in Ethiopia are traditional and crop bases are complex, vary across agro-ecologies and diverse according to cultural food needs of resource-poor farmers. Maize is commonly planted in rows of varying spaces; less effort has been made to study the optimum densities to maximize its productivity in different agro-ecologies of Ethiopia. It is being observed that lately innovated medium and early maize varieties in humid lowlands and low moisture stress area found to be varied in structure and leaf arrangements from known normal maize varieties. These variations in morphology may lead to different planting density to attain maximum yield potentials
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