Effect of Population Density and Fertilizer Rates on Yield and Yield Components of High Land Maize

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted for two years (2019 and 2020) during the main cropping seasons at Holeta, Welmera wereda, West Shoa, in the central highlands of Ethiopia to determine optimum planting density and fertilizer rates for maize production. The treatments consists of factorial combination of four population densities (44,444, 53,333, 62,500 and 66,666 plants/hectare) and four fertilizer rates (150:200,150:250, 200:200 and 250:200 NPS:Urea kg/ha) laid down in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. The main effect of population density significantly (P <0.05) affected plant height, ear height, cob diameter and grain yield but not significantly affected cob length, number of cob per plant and thousand seed weight. Even if the main effect of population density did not significantly affect thousand seed weight, the lowest thousand seed weight was recorded at the highest population density. The main effect of fertilizer rates significantly (P< 0.05) affected only plant height and grain yield. As population density increases maize grain yield was also increasing, and the highest grain yield (8894.2kg/ha) was attained by the highest population density (66,666plants/ha). This means that population density more than 66,666plants /ha may be needed because the grain yield was still in increasing manner. On the other hand, the interaction effect of population density and fertilizer rates was not significant to affect all the tasted growth and yield parameters. Based on statistical and economic analysis results, out of the tasted treatments the highest grain yield was recorded at the highest population density (66,666plants/ha) and using fertilizer rate of 250NPS:200Urea.

Keywords: highland maize, population density, fertilizer rate, yield

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-3-03

Publication date: February 28^th 2022