Fertilizer requirement of crops vary from location to location owing to several factors. Thus there is a need to determine site specific fertilizer recommendation for specific crops. Accordingly, an experiment was conducted on the effects of different nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer levels on yield and yield components of barley at south eastern Oromia, Bore, in 2009 cropping season. The barley variety Biftu was used as test crop. It is a newly released variety from Sinana Agricultural Research Center. The experiment contained factorial combination of five levels of N (0, 30, 60, 90 and 120 Kg ha -1 ) and four levels of P (0, 23, 46 and 69 Kg ha -1 ) laid out in randomized complete block design with four replications. Application of N significantly prolonged number of days to heading and maturity and grain filling period. Number of fertile tillers, total biomass and straw yield were significantly increased by application of N. However, the effect of N on plant height and number of total tillers was not significant. On the other hand, P application significantly influenced all the parameters of growth and development. Contrary to N, increase in P significantly shortened number of days to heading and maturity and grain filling period. Number of fertile tillers was significantly increased by P application. The interaction effect of N and P was significant on days to heading and number of fertile tillers. Therefore, balanced amount of N and P is very essential for appropriate growth of barley.

ABSTRACTwere assessed. Protein and gluten content, vitreous kernel count, thousand kernel weight, test weight and lodging were considered. Vitreous kernel count, protein and gluten content were higher at Debre Zeit than at Akaki. Unlike Debre Zeit, there were significant relationships between response variables and fertilizer levels at Akaki. Lodging slightly affected the medium tall varieties at Debre Zeit whereas it was not a problem at Akaki. At Akaki, varieties response to each additional N rate was entirely below the quality standard set by ICC, 2000 except for thousandkernel weight. Therefore, it is unwise to promote durum wheat scaling up/out program for quality production at Akaki.

Onion is an important cultivated crop as a condiment as well as a source of income for many farmers in Ethiopia. However, the productivity of the crop is much lower due to different problems. A field experiment was conducted to determine the effect of seedling age and phosphorus rate on growth and yield performance of onion at Alage, Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, during 2016/2017 season. The treatments comprised three seedling ages (6, 7 and 8 weeks of seedling age) and four phosphorus rates (0, 46, 92 and 138 kg P 2 O 5 ha-1). The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. The result showed that seedling age and phosphorus rate significantly affected plant height, leaf length, days to maturity, fresh bulb weight, bulb dry matter fraction, bulb length, marketable bulb yield, total bulb yield, and harvest index. Among these parameters, marketable bulb yield, total bulb yield and harvest index were also significantly affected by the interaction of seedling age and phosphorus rate. On the other hand, leaf number per plant, bulb diameter, total biomass yield and unmarketable bulb yield were only influenced by the effect of phosphorus rates. In this study, transplanting at 8 weeks of seedling age fertilized with 138 kg P 2 O 5 ha-1 recorded the highest total bulb yield (50.6 t ha-1) and marketable bulb yield (48.33 t ha-1), but no significant difference was shown with that obtained at 92 kg P 2 O 5 ha-1 with the same seedling age. Treatment combinations of seedling age at 6 weeks and no P (control) produced the lowest amounts of total bulb yield (24.27 t ha-1) and marketable bulb yield (21.63 t ha-1). The partial budget analysis revealed that the highest net benefit with low cost of production was obtained in response to the application of 92 kg P 2 O 5 ha-1 and the transplanting age of 8 weeks. The marginal rate of return for this treatment was 5657% which is found to be economically feasible for producing onion in the study area.