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Maize (Zea mays L.)is an important cereal in many developed and developing countries of the world and it is widely used for animal feed and industrial raw material in the developed countries whereas the developing countries use it in general for feed. Its production is constrained by a number of problems among which declining soil fertility, blanket fertilizer application, spacing between the plants are the most paramount. Thus an experiment was conducted in 2023 main cropping season at Abramo in Western Ethiopia with the objective of evaluating the effects of Plant population and blended fertilizers including N, P, S and B on yield and yield components of maize. The Maize variety called BH546 was used as a test crop. Factorial combinations of three population and four NPSB levels (0kg, 50kg, 100kg and 150kg) was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Crop data on Phonological, vegetative growth and yield related parameters was collected timely from the net plot areas following their respective standard methods and procedures. All collected crop data was subjected to analyses of variance (ANOVA) using the SAS software version 9.4 with GLM procedure (SAS Institute, 2021). The ANOVA results for 12 traits were showed very highly significant difference, except Days to 50% emergence, Number of cobs per plant and Harvest index. Thousand kernel weight ranged from 358gm for treatment (66666 plant population in combination with 150kg NPSB ha−1 ) to 410gm for treatment (44,444 plant population in combination with 0kg NPSB ha−1 ). Ear length among the tested treatments ranged from 11.8cm to 20.8cm. The longest ear length was obtained from treatment 8 (44444 plant population in combination with 0kg NPSB ha−1 ), whereas the shortest ear length was obtained from treatment 1(22,222 plant population in combination with 0kg/ha NPSB). The plant height ranged from 224.3cm to 253.0cm. The highest plant height was recorded for treatment 12, while the lowest plant height was recorded for treatment 3(22,222 plant population combination with 100kg NPSB ha−1 ). The highest grain yield was obtained from treatment (44,444 plant population in combination with 150kg/ha blended (NPSB) which accounted (6.28ton/ha), which is followed by treatment (44,444 plant population in combination with 100kg/ha blended (NPSB) (6.20ton/ha). Biological yield, harvest index and grain yield also showed significant difference for the interaction effect of plant population and blended fertilizer rates. The highest leaf area index (3.83 m2 ) was obtained from the combination of 150kg NPSP and plant population 44,444 ha-1 , while the smallest leaf area index was obtained from the combination of zero NPSB and 22,222 plant population (1.07m-2 ) ha-1 . The highest ear length (20.6cm) was obtained from the combination of 150kg NPSP and plant population 44,444 ha-1 , while the shortest ear length was obtained from the combination of zero NPSB and 22,222 plant population (11.8cm) ha-1 . The highest biological yield (31.8 ton/ha) was obtained from the combination of 150kg NPSP and plant population 66,666 ha-1 , while the smallest biological yield was obtained from the combination of zero NPSB and 66,666 plant population (24.2ton ha-1 ) . The highest harvest index (25.0%) was obtained from the combination of 100kg NPSP and plant population 44,444 ha-1, while the lowest harvest index was obtained from the combination of zero NPSB and 66666 plant population (15.0%) . The highest grain yield (6450.53kg/ha) was obtained from the combination of 150kg NPSB and plant population 44,444 ha-1 followed by treatment (plant population 44,444 in combination with 100kg NPSB kg/ha (6403.70kg/ha), while the smallest grain yield was obtained from the combination of zero NPSB and 66666 plant population (4003.70 kgha-1 ) . The partial budget analysis shows that,treatment combination of 44,444 plant population with 100kg NPSBha-1 econonically and agronomically profitable for in the maize production.Thus it can be concluded that application of 100 kg NPSB ha-1 with 44,444 plant population was found to be better and economically for grain yield of maize BH546 hybrid variety under rainfed condition and recommended in the study area.
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