Abstract            Volume:13  Issue-4  Year-2025         Original Research Articles

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

Poor soil fertility and inappropriate agronomic practices are the major constraints that limit potato productivity in Ethiopia. Thus, the study was conducted to determine the effect of NPSB fertilizer rates and inter row spacing on tuber yield and yield components of potato and to identify economically feasible treatments that can maximize the productivity of potato. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with factorial arrangement in three replications. The treatments consisted of four levels of NPSB (50,100,150 and 200 kg ha^-1) fertilizer and three inter row spacing (65, 75 and 85cm) with control treatment which constituted a total of 13 treatments. The results of combined analysis of variance showed that the main effect of NPSB application rates and inter row spacing were significantly affected Plant height, Number of main stem, Number of tuber, Marketable tuber, unmarketable tuber, total tuber yield and average tuber weight. Hence, application of 200 kg ha ^-1 NPSB resulted maximum marketable tuber yield (51.36 t ha^-1 while lower yield was obtained from control treatment. Furthermore, the highest marketable tuber yield (45.16 t ha ^-1 were obtained from the inter-row spacing of 85cm whereas the lowest result for these parameters were recorded at 65 cm. Conversely, the highest value of agronomic efficiency 152.4 kg kg^-1 was obtained at lowest NPSB rate 50 kg ha ^-1 while lowest agronomic efficiency 142.65kg kg^-1was obtained from highest NPSB 200 kg ha ^-1. The result of correlation analysis showed that there is positive and significant correlation among tuber yield and yield components, such Marketable tuber yield was strongly correlated with tuber number (r=0.49**), total tuber yield (r=0.99***) and average tuber weight (r=0.92***). Besides, the partial budget analysis revealed that the highest net benefit obtained (1231355 birr ha^-1) with acceptable marginal rate of return (3823.92%) and (2120240 birr ha^-1) with acceptable marginal rate of return (11444.83%) from NPSB kg ha^-1 and 85cm inter row spacing respectively. Therefore, the production of potato with 150 kg ha ^-1NPSB fertilizer rate and 85 cm inter row spacing is most productive and economically profitable and can be recommended for the study area for further scaling up.

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