Effects of Blended Fertilizer Type and Rates of Application on Yield and Quality of Durum Wheat (<i>Triticum turgidum var. durum</i>) in Southeastern Ethiopia

Abstract

There are several biotic and abiotic factors that hindered the yield and quality of durum wheat in Ethiopia. To solve the problem, the field experiment was conducted during the 2020/21 cropping season to determine the effect of blended fertilizer type and rate of fertilizer application on the yield and quality of durum wheat in South Eastern Ethiopia. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications in factorial arrangement of three different blended fertilizer type (NPS, NPSB and NPSZnB) and four different rates (50 kg/ha, 100 kg/ha, 150 kg/ha and 200 kg/ha) of fertilizer application and one control in each replication. The results indicated that straw yield, Gluten content and protein content were significantly (P>0.05) affected by the main effect of different blended fertilizer type and rates of fertilizer application significantly (P>0.05) whereas harvest index of the wheat are significantly affected only by the different rates of fertilizer application but the productive tiller number, number of seed per spike and spike length were non significantly (P>0.05) affected by the different blended fertilizer type and rates of fertilizer application. More over the interaction effect of different blended fertilizer type and rate of fertilizer application on wheat yield and quality was affects the plant height, biomass yield, thousand seed weight and Grain yield was significant difference (P>0.05) but all other parameters were not affected by the interaction of different fertilizer type and rates of fertilizer application. Therefore based on the result of yield and quality of the durum wheat sown with NPS had better protein quality than the other fertilizer applied. The interactive effect of NPSZnB with 200 kg ha^-1 fertilizer rate was superior for achieving higher yield in the study area. However, further study has to be done under different locations based on the soil test with a wide range of different micronutrients and rates of fertilizer application to exploit the tentative recommendation of the present study.