Abstract

Teff [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)] is the most important cereal crop of Ethiopia, occupying 31% area and 20% production of the total cereal crops. However, its productivity is almost stagnant, with a national average yield of meager 1.46 tonnes ha^-1 mainly due to inadequate modern agronomic practices and technologies in the present production system. The urgent necessity for its higher production and productivity as a staple food of the country is increasing year after year. Therefore, in order to investigate the effect of three levels of rows spacing, four levels of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer rates and their interaction on growth and yield attributes as well as yield of teff, a field experiment was conducted on kora variety of teff. The response of growth parameters to the treatments were significant in all parameters, except lodging percentage due to main effect of rows spacing. The highest increments recorded were 317, 49.09 and 28.18% in effective tillers, panicle length and plant height plant^-1, respectively in their interaction effects in treatments of 80/80 and 70/70 kg of N/P₂O₅ ha^-1 with 10 cm over the lowest result recorded from treatment of 50/50 kg of N/P₂O₅ha^-1 with 30 cm spacing. While, the response of yield and yield components were found significant and the highest result in interaction effects were an increment of 113.21, 35.28, 55.45 and 41.7% kg ha^-1 for grain yield, straw yield, biomass yield and harvest index, respectively from 80/80 kg of N/P₂O₅ with 10 cm spacing over the lowest result reported from 50/50 kg of N/P₂O₅ ha^-1 with 30cm spacing. Economic partial budget analysis of the study depicted that at row spacing of 10 cm with 80/80 kg of N/P₂O₅ ha^-1 fertilizer dose resulted in maximum relative net return of ETB 50178 ha^-1 followed by ETB 48017 ha^-1 for 70/70 kg of N/P₂O₅ ha^-1. The study concluded that, higher productivity and net economic return can be achieved for kora variety of teff by applying 80/80 kg of N/P₂O₅ ha^-1 with 10 cm row spacing as compared to the other treatments.

Key words: Economics, nitrogen, phosphorus, row spacing, teff, yield.