RESPONSE OF MALT BARLEY (Hordeum vulgare L.) TO DIFFERENT RATES OF NPSB AND UREA FERTILIZERS IN BULE HORA WOREDA, GUJI ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

Malt Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of major crops grown in Bule Hora woreda,oromia region South western Ethiopia. The soil in the area is poor in most of the available nutrients due to intensive soil erosion and long history of cultivation. Therefore, a field experiment was carried out in 2019 cropping season to evaluate response of malt barley to the different rates of NPSB and N fertilizer. The treatments consisted of four levels of NPSB (0, 50, 100, and 150 kg NPSB ha -1 ) and four levels of N (0, 23, 46, 69 kg N ha -1 ). The experiment was laid out in three replication of the randomized complete block design in a factorial arrangement. The results revealed that the interaction effect had a highly significant (p<0.001) on Days to heading, Days to physiological maturity, thousand kernel weight, grain yield and Hectoliter weight. The main effect N fertilizer had a significant effect on spike length, number of tiller per plant, number of spikelet per spike and protein content. Blended NPSB also had significant (p<0.05) effect on number of effective tiller, above ground biomass. Plant height had significantly (p<0.05) by blended NPSB and N fertilizer The highest yield (3691kgha -1 ) was recorded from the interaction effect of 150 kg NPSB ha -1 and 69kg N ha -1 . The partial budget analysis also indicated that the best treatments were interaction of 150 kg NPSB ha -1 and 69kg N ha -1 , which gave net benefits of 63203 ETB ha -1 with acceptable marginal rate of return (5776%). Therefore, it could be concluded that application of 150 kg blended NPSB ha -1 with 69kg N ha -1 fertilizer rates were economically profitable yield and the application of 23kg N ha -1 acceptable for grain quality for malt barley production in the study area.