EFFECT OF DIFFERENT BLENDED FERTILIZER RATES ON YIELD AND YIELD RELATED TRAITS OF BREAD WHEAT (Triticum aestivum L.) IN SIYA DEBRENA WAYU DISTRICT, NORTH SHEWA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops in Ethiopia. However, the yield of the crop is low mainly due to low soil fertility and poor soil fertility management practices. Field experiment was conducted during 2017 cropping season in Siya Debrena wayu district , central Ethiopia with the objective to investigate the effect of different blended fertilizer rates of S, B, Zn and K on growth, yield attributes and yields of bread wheat. The 14 treatments used for the field experiment were (1) control, (2) recommended NP(175 kgha1N+125 kgha-1 P2O5), (3) S1(10.5 kgha1), (4) S2(15.75 kgha-1), (5) S3(21 kgha-1), (6) S1B1(10.35 S, 0.15B) kgha-1, (7) S2B2(15.5 S, 1.5B) kgha-1, (8) S3B3(20.7 S, 3B) kgha-1, (9) S1B1Zn1 (11.1S, 0.15B, 3.3Zn) kgha-1, (10) S2B2Zn2(16.65S, 1.5B, 4.95Zn) kgha-1, (11) S3B3Zn3(22.2S, 3B, 6.6Zn) kgha-1,(12) S1B1 Zn1K1(11.1S, 0.15B, 3.3Zn, 50K) kgha-1, (13) S2B2Zn2K2(16,65S, 1.5B, 4.95Zn, 100K) kgha-1and (14) S3B3Zn3K3(22.2S, 3B, 6.6Zn, 150K) kgha-1. The recommended NP fertilizer are equally applied to the whole treatments except control. The experiment was conducted in RCBD with three replications. Data were collected on growth, yield and yield components. Growth, yield and yield components of bread wheat was significantly affected by the treatments except 1000-grain weight. The highest above ground dry biomass yield (14.29 tha-1) and highest grain yield (5.77 tha-1) was record from the application of NPS1B1Zn1, which was statistically at par with most of the blended fertilizer treatments. The highest grain yield was far from the recommended NP average yield by 18%. It is clearly observed from collected data and soil analysis report application of K fertilizer is not responsive in study area but, S, B and Zn application at the minimum rate is responsive and economically visible. Therefore, application of blended fertilizer NPS1B1Zn1(175 kgha-1N+125 kgha-1P2O+11.1 kgha1S+3.3 kgha-1Zn+0.15 kgha-1B) can be recommended for wheat production particularly in the study area but, additional application K fertilizer is unnecessary in the study area. However, the experiment was done only at one test sites representing the central highlands of Ethiopia for one season. Therefore, the experiments would have to be replicated over different genotypes of wheat across location and season including the quality and nutritional value of the crop to get a conclusive result and sound fertilizer recommendation for the specific area in order to ascertain the finding of the current study