In many developing countries mining plant nutrients by crop removal without adequate replenishment combined with imbalance plant nutrition practices, poses a serious threat to agricultural production. A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years (2017 to 2018) to observe the response of maize to different rates of NPSB fertilizer. The experiment comprises of five treatments: control (no fertilizer), 150 kg NPSB + 41 kg urea (46N, 54P2O5, 10S, 1.07B), 200kg NPSB + 72kg urea (69N, 72P2O5, 13.5S, 1.4B), 250kg NPSB 102 kg urea (92N, 90P2O5, 17S, 1.75B), and 100kg NPSB + 260kg urea (138N, 36P2O5, 6.7S, 0.71B) were tested using randomized complete block design with three replications. The initial soil physical and chemical analysis indicated that the study area is generally characterized as medium in soil fertility and moderately acidic. The analyzed soil data after harvesting showed that the application of blended fertilizer rates numerically increased the total nitrogen and available sulfur in the soil. However, some nutrients like available P, K, and B become decreased numerically in the soil after harvesting. The result showed that there were significant differences (p<0.05) between treatment. The application of different levels of NPSB fertilizer significantly influenced maize grain yield but there were no significant difference on plant height and biomass yield of maize. 65 to 117% grain yield improvements over control was obtained by application of different rates of NPSB. The highest grain yield of maize was recorded from 100kg NPSB + 260kg urea (138N, 36P2O5, 6.7S, 0.71B) application of the highest net benefit (ET Birr 24226.7) and MRR% (699.1) was also obtained by application of 100kg NPSB + 260kg urea (138N, 36P2O5, 6.7S, 0.71B). It is then recommended that to improve maize yield at Debub Ari and similar agro ecology and soil condition areas application of 100kg NPSB + 260kg urea ha-1 (138N, 36P2O5, 6.7S, 0.71B) is recommended.
maize yield, blended fertilizer, NPSB, economic benefit
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