Article InfoCabbage (Brassica oleracea L.) is the second most important vegetable crop in Ethiopia in area coverage as well as level of production next to red pepper. However, yield of the crop is often constrained by low and imbalanced nutrient supply. This study was conducted at the Bore Agricultural Research Center (BoARC) during the period from July 1, 2014 to December 2, 2014 cropping season to assess the response of N and FYM on growth and yield of cabbage. The treatments consisted of factorial combinations of five levels of N (0, 59,119, 235 and 294 kg N ha -1 ) and four levels of FYM (0, 3, 6 and 10 t ha -1 ) and were laid out in RCBD with three replications. The ANOVA results showed that interaction effect of N and FYM significantly (P<0.001) difference on plant height, number of expanded leaves, days to head initiation, days to 90% maturity, head height, head diameter, untrimmed head weight, trimmed head weight, yield with and without wrapper and biomass of yield. There was a Significance differences between the mean plant heights (43.2cm) of head cabbage observed versus FYM of (10 t ha -1 ) with each level of N (235 kg ha -1 ) for plant height. However, the combined effect of highest N (294 kg ha -1 ) and highest FYM (10 t ha -1 ) recorded maximum number of leaves (16.66), shortest days to head initiation (63.33) and early days to maturity (112). And also the interaction effect of both N and FYM (235 kg + 6 t ha -1 ), respectively was highly significantly (P<0.001) recorded highest head height (18.14cm), highest head diameter (17.03cm), highest untrimmed head weight (2296.67g), highest trimmed head weight (1766.67g), maximum (107.47 t ha -1 ) yield with wrapper head cabbage, highest head yield without wrapper (72.36 t ha -1 ) and maximum biomass yield (107.47 t ha -1 ) of head cabbage. There was an increasing trend in the yield without wrapper or marketable head yield parameter with the increasing in the rate till combined application of 235 kg N ha -1 from UREA and 6 t FYM ha -1 , but the yield declined above these combinations. Based on partial budget analysis the highest net benefit was obtained from treatment combinations of 235 kg N ha -1 with 6 t ha -1 with a marginal rate of return 2535.31%. The most attractive rates for the producers with low cost of production and higher benefits in this case were treatment combination of 235 kg N ha -1 with 6 t ha -1 . Generally results of the study suggested that head cabbage responded well to the combined application of N and FYM and application of 235 kg N ha -1 + 6 t FYM ha -1 can give optimum cabbage head yield in the study area.

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Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food security and cash crop for farmers in highland parts of Ethiopia, particularly in Guji zone where it is grown by farmers and seed producers abundantly. However, in the highland areas of Guji zone an access, well adapted, résistance to late blight and high yielder potato variety is highly limited. Due to this reason, there is an urgent need to develop and replace the previous underproduction varieties that suit for the area. As a result, an experiment was conducted in the highland areas of Guji Zone at Bore on-station and three farmers' fields (Abayi kuture, Raya boda, and Bube korsa) during 2019/20 cropping season to select and recommend high yielding, and diseases résistance improved potato varieties through participatory variety selection. Six (6) improved potato varieties (Gudanie, Belete, Jalenie, Dagim, Horro, and Bubu) were used as testing crop. The treatments were arranged in randomized completed block design (RCBD) with three replications for mother trial and farmers were used as replication for baby trials. Both agronomic and farmers data were collected based on the recommended standards. Data collected from mother trail were subjected to analysis of variance where as matrix ranking was used for data collected from baby trials. The analysis of variance indicated that significant differences observed at (P≤ 0.05) among the tested Irish potato varieties for day to 50% emergence and flowering, stem number per hill, tuber number per hill, marketable and total tuber yield. However, non-significant difference was observed at (P> 0.05) among the varieties for days to days to 90% maturity, plant height, tuber weight and unmarketable tuber yield. The highest marketable tuber yield was (48.17t/ha) was recorded for Belete followed by Bubu and Gudanie (35.35 and 34.3t/ha) respectively. But, the lowest marketable tuber yield (18.07t/ha) was obtained from improved Dagim variety. In other cases, farmers were allowed to evaluate the varieties using their own criteria. Accordingly, variety Bubu and Gudanie were selected by farmers due to their resistant to disease, stem number, tuber size, tuber color, tuber eye depth, number of tubers and marketability. Therefore, these two improved Irish potato varieties are selected based on agronomic data result and farmers preference and recommended for production to the highland areas of Guji zone.