Determination of Optimum Nitrogen and Potassium Levels for potato Production in Central high lands of Ethiopia

Abstract

to potato production for reasonable yield at sites similar to experimental locations. It can be concluded that, interaction of nitrogen and potassium rates significantly affected plant height and marketable tuber numbers.Keywords: Potassium, Nitrogen, Potato, marketable and unmarketable yield IntroductionPotato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is very important for food and income generation as it produces a high yield per unit land and time. About 70% of cultivated agricultural land of Ethiopia is suitable for potato production (Yilma 1991). The annual potato production in Ethiopia was 1.62 million ton from an area coverage of 0.18 million hectares (CSA 2014). The national average yield is 9 tons/ha (CSA 2014) which is very low compared to the world mean of 16.4 tons/ha (Husna and Eliakira 2014). One of the contributing factors was poor use of optimum plant nutrition. This way of application can lead to excessiveness or shortage. When excessive nitrogen is applied, crop yield is reduced; cost of production increased and the environment is polluted, especially soil and ground water is acidified (Honisch et al. 2002). Cultivation with low or no fertilizer usage (Gezu 2015) is common practice in Ethiopian farmers. Lower levels of fertilizer use and/or inappropriate type of fertilizers application is one of the productivity problems in Ethiopia (Chillot and Hassan 2010). It was mentioned that there was soil nutrient depletion due to human interventions (Chillot and Hassan 2010) which can significantly influence food security in Ethiopia (MOARD 2101). Inappropriate soil fertility management is a cause of food shortage and malnutrition of tremendous numbers of people which also have associated health impact (Gete et al. 2010). Furthermore, information about potassium fertilizer and its levels on potato product is also scarce in Ethiopia. Even though the crop requirement of potassium Abstract: To determine the required levels of nitrogen and potassium, an experiment was conducted at Holetta Agricultural Research Center and Jeldu sub Center from 2014-2015 using three factors (Jalenie, Gudenie and Belete potato varies; 87, 110, 133kg/ha nitrogen rates and 0, 34.5, 69, 103.5kg/ha potassium in the form of K 2 O levels) and as a completely randomized block design arrangement with three replications. In each location every year the 36 treatments (4 potassium oxide levels x 3 nitrogen levels x 3 varieties) were assigned in random combinations to 36 plots of one block in a random case which was replicated in to two additional blocks of different randomizations in order to make total of three replications/blocks. Data were analyzed by SAS software Version 9.2. Potassium rates significantly affected the total yield and marketable yield as compared to the control treatment. Application of potassium at 103.5 kg/ha produced significantly a higher marketable yield than all rates. As compared to Jeldu, the Holetta location produced the maximum highly significant yield and yield component. Interaction of potassium and nitrogen fertilizers aff...

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