No abstract

The common bean is one of Ethiopia's most economically important legumes. However, its national average yield remains lower than the potential yield obtained at research stations. This is because of low soil fertility, inappropriate plant spacing, disease and insect pest problems. As a result, this experiment was carried out during the 2021 to investigate the impact of blended NPS fertilizer rates and spacing between crops on the growth and yield of common bean and to analyze the economic feasibility of blended NPS rates with common bean spacing. A four-factorial combination of mixed NPS levels (0, 50, 100 and 150 kg ha-1) and three row spacing (30, 40, and 50 cm) were used in a three-replicate randomized complete block design. After collecting plant phenology, growth, yield, and yield attribute parameters were analyzed by using SAS version 9.3 software. The results revealed significant differences for the main effect of the NPS blended fertilizer, row spacings, and their interaction on most of the measured phenological, growth, yield, and yield attributes of the common bean, however, neither the main effect nor the interaction effects affected seedling emergence. The combined use of 150 kg of mixed NPS ha-1 with a row spacing of 40 cm resulted in a higher grain yield (2.5 t ha-1) and maximum net benefit (41775 ETB ha-1). Hence, it can be established that earlier mentioned NPS fertilizer rate and row spacing isa better choice for farmers in the area and similar agro-ecologies in order to achieve the highest possible grain yield and a higher net return.

Variety trials with haricot bean have long been studied; varietal response for maximum yielding ability, however, depends on agro-ecological conditions of a particular growing environment. Therefore, the current study evaluates the performance of varieties on growth, yield and yield components of Haricot bean at two locations of Bench-Maji Zone. The treatment consists of eight nationally released varieties and one local check. The experiments were conducted during 2015 and 2016 main cropping seasons at South Bench and Menit Shasha districts, respectively. It was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Data on growth yield and yield related parameters were collected and analyzed using SAS software. The results showed that varieties had a significant effect on plant height, primary branches, number of pods per plant, and number of seeds per pod, stand count at harvest, total biomass, harvesting index, 100 seed weight, and grain yield. Four nationally released varieties, namely Nasir, Roba, Awash-Melka and Red Wolayita were found to be the top performing and best-adapted varieties under the agro-ecological conditions of the studied areas. On the other hand, variety Nasir outperformed over the local checks, at both locations. The yield advantage of this variety over the local checks at Menit Shasha and South Bench districts was 23 and 37%, respectively. Therefore, variety Nasir is recommended for cultivation in the studied areas and other locations with similar agroecological conditions. If need arises for additional confirmation; further adaptation trials across more locations and years are of paramount importance.

One of the principal food crops in almost all of Ethiopia is maize (Zea mays L.).However, It has very low production when compared to that of Africa and the rest of the world. Because of poor agronomic practices, such as inappropriate row spacing and fertilizer management practice. Therefore, the experiment was conducted during the 2020 main cropping season at Maenit goldia district in South-West Ethiopia to decide the response of maize yield by inter-row spacing and blended NPS fertilizer rats. A factorial combination of 4 levels of blended NPS fertilizer (0, 50,100 and 150 kg) and 3 levels of between row spacing (70, 75 and 80 cm) were laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 replications. Data on crop phenology, growth yield components and yield parameter were collected and analyzed using SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute Inc., 2015). The result of this experiment show that combined use of blended NPS fertilizer and row spacing significantly influence growth and yield and yield components parameters of maize. As the Use of blended NPS fertilizer and row spacing increased the days to tasseling, plant height, ear length, ear diameter and leaf area increased whereas, decreased days to maturity and days to silking. And also use of 150 kg ha-1 of NPS blended fertilizer and row spacing (80 cm) increased number of grain yield, 100 grain weight , above ground biomass and harvesting index by 39.85, 35.20, 32.93 and 35.02%, respectively. Accordingly, it should be noted that, based on an analysis of the partial budget, combinations of the widest row spacing (80 cm) and 150 kg ha-1 of blended NPS fertilizer were promising for maize production in the main cropping season of the Chat Kebele Mea’nit Goldia district and other similar agro-ecologies.