Validation of Fertilizer Requirement Map for bread wheat at Lume District, East Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Fertilizer recommendations in Ethiopia in general and Lume district, in particular, are of blanket type for bread wheat production and are based on soil color characteristics rather than on soil test results and crop requirements. Hence Batu Soil Research Center was produced fertilizer requirement map and field experiments were carried out on nine peasant associations of Lume district to validate the quality of fertilizer requirement map on some yield components and yield of bread wheat crop. The treatments consisted of Control (unfertilized plot), Blanket (100/100 NPS/Urea), P-map (phosphorus applied from fertilizer requirement map) and P-required (Pc-P0)*Pf ) were laid out with simple adjacent plots and replicated over nine location (Peasant association). The Analysis of Variance indicates that Bread wheat grain Yield, Biomass and Harvest index were highly significantly (P<0.01) influenced by treatment applied. P-required (Pc-P0)*Pf) gave the highest (4039 kg ha) grain yield and (9964 kg ha ) Biomass yield except (47.33%) harvest index which was recorded by P-map (phosphorus applied from fertilizer requirement map). While the lowest (1072 kg ha) grain yield and (3294 kg ha ) Biomass and (32.03%) harvest index were recorded by unfertilized plot. However, the economic analysis revealed that for a treatment to be considered as worthwhile to farmers (100% marginal rate of return) application of P-map (phosphorus applied from fertilizer requirement map) is profitable for Bread wheat crop production and recommended for farmers in Lume district.