Nimona Fufa, Dasta Tsagaye and Demis Fikre

Because of unbalanced application of fertilizers, soil fertility depletion is one of the greatest challenges to sustained agricultural productivity, particularly in developing countries. Maintaining soil fertility demands a well-balanced application of inorganic nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, which are the most critical and influential elements for the production of potato in most Ethiopian soils. Consequently, the experiment was conducted at Kofele sub-site in south-eastern Ethiopia during the 2021 and 2022 cropping seasons to evaluate different rates of N and P fertilizers on tuber yield performance and economic profitability of potato production. The treatments used consisted of four levels of nitrogen (0, 46, 92, and 138 kg ha^-1) and phosphorus (0, 46, 69, and 92 kg ha^-1) combined with factorial arrangements and laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The results revealed that almost all parameters were significantly affected by the main effect of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer rates, but their interaction did not show significant effect. As a result, in both seasons, the highest marketable tuber and total tuber yield were obtained at the combined application of 138 kg N with 92 kg P2O5 ha^-1. However, the partial budget analysis indicated that the combined application of 92 kg N and 69 kg P2O5 ha^-1 gave the highest net benefit with an acceptable marginal rate of return (MRR) of 492.93%, followed by 92 kg N and 92 kg P2O5 ha^-1, which might be taken as a profitable rate for the tested area. The economic recommendations may be subjected to changes based on the cost of fertilizers and price of the product (potato). Therefore, on the basis of economic performance, it can be concluded that the application of combined 92 kg N ha⁻¹ with 69 kg P2O5 ha⁻¹ fertilizer rates is more economical and recommended for potato production in the Kofele area.

DOI: 10.22271/phyto.2024.v13.i6e.15206

Pages: 384-392  |  84 Views  25 Downloads