Abstract            Volume:11  Issue-9  Year-2023         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) is one of the most important food security and cash crops in Ethiopia. However, its productivity is generally low. The low yields of the crop could be attributed to a number of factors among which low soil fertility is an important constrain and there is little information on the type and rates of fertilizers to be applied and cropping system has been given a little attention to improve its production and productivity of the crop. Therefore, an experiment was conducted at Kiltu sorsa farmer field Adola district during the 2021 and 2022 cropping season to determine the effect of blended NPSB and nitrogen fertilizer rates on Black cumin, and to assess the cost and benefit of different rates of blended NPSB and nitrogen fertilizers on Black cumin. The treatments consisted of four rates of blended NPSB (0, 50, 100, and 150 kg NPSB/ha) and four rates of nitrogen (0, 23, 46 and 69 kg N/ha) fertilizers. The experiment was laid out as a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in a 4*4 factorial arrangement replicated three times. An improved Black cumin variety called Silingo was used as a test crop. The two years analysis of the data revealed that the interaction effects of blended NPSB and nitrogen fertilizers influenced significantly (P<0.05) Days to 50% flowering, Days to 90% maturity, plant height, Number capsule per plant, and seed yield. However, the two fertilizers did not interact to influence number of seed per capsule parameter of the crop. The highest seed yields were obtained to the application of 100 kg blended NPSB/ha and 46 kg N/ ha (9.75 qt/ha) while lowest seed yield (3.71qt/ha) were obtained to both nil received plots of the two fertilizers. The partial budget analysis revealed that application of 100 kg ha blended NPSB and 46 kg N/ha resulted in the net benefits of 122,425 ETB/ ha with acceptable 2148.478.00% marginal rate of return. Therefore, the application of 100 kg blended NPSB with 46 kg N/ha (64.9 kg N + 37.7 kg P₂O₅ + 6.95 kg S + 0.1 kg B/ha) fertilizer rates led to optimum Black cumin seed yield production, economic returns and recommended for Black cumin growers in the midland areas of Guji zone.

Download this article as