The relative importance of variety, fertilizer and weeding on barley production

Food barley is a major crop grown in northwestern Ethiopia. The primary production constraints in this area include low soil fertility, lack of improved varieties and high weed infestation. Most of the previous experiments conducted in the region to quantify food barley yield losses due to specific production constraints examined single factor only. This made in difficult to determine the relative importance of the different factors and impossible to examine interactions of these factors. Three production factors: varieties (local and HB-42), fertilizer levels (unfertilized and 60/60 kg N/P2O5 per ha) and weeding (unweeded and hand weeding once) were tested in factorial arrangement of RCB design at Huleteju- enebe and Farta in 1994 and 1995, and at Dabat in 1995 cropping season on Nitosols of farmers field to determine the relative importance of the factors and to investigate their interaction effect on the grain yield of food barley. In 1994 all factors had shown significant grain yield difference at Farta but only variety and fertilizer at Huleteju- Enebssie in 1994 and all locations in 1995. The interactions of the tree factors were non-significant in both years at all locations. The local variety was superior except at Farta in 1995. It gave a yield advantage of 782 ha at Huleteju- Enebssie and 233 kg at Dabat over the improved once. Application of fertilizer significantly increased grain yield ranging from 80-101 at Farta, 283-286 at Huleteju-Enebssie and 135 at Dabat over unfertilized plots. Differences on gain yield due to weeding was not significant at both locations except at Farta in 1994 where a yield advantage of 361 kg was obtained on weeded plots as compared to unweeded. Therefore, application of fertilizer was more important than other factors considered and interaction of variety by fertilizer was more important than other factors considered and interaction of variety by fertilizer were also relatively more beneficial than other interactions. Plant height was significantly affected by all factors and their interactions at Huleteju-Enebssie where as it was affected only by fertilizer at farta and Dabat.