Agricultural and Biological Research

Yield of onion (Allium cepa L.) as influenced by nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer rates at Alage, central rift valley of Ethiopia

Birku Getnet, Yigermal Melkamu and Kibret Abebe*

Onions is among the most important vegetable crops produced in Ethiopia by both smallholder farmers and commercial growers for both local and export markets. However, its productivity is low mainly due to absence of location specific fertilizer recommendation. Therefore, the present experiment was conducted on Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in factorial arrangement with three replications at Alage Agriculture Technical Vocational Educational Training College Research field in January 2021 to determine the effects of Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) fertilizer rate on yield of onion. The results of the experiment revealed that, plant height, leaf length, leaves number, shoot dry matter and bulb length of onion influenced by main effect of N and P and also dry total biomass, bulb weight, bulb diameter, bulb dry matter, marketable bulb yield and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) highly significantly affected by the interaction effect of N-P fertilizer rate. Nevertheless, more researches are needed in different locations and on different seasons to come up with general recommendation.