Effect of Plant Spacing and Urea Fertilizer on Yield and Yield Components of Beetroot (Beta Vulgaris L.)

Abstract

Beetroot is one of horticultural crop which need intensive cultural practice. It is important throughout the world by being a source of food as well as income for consumers, processors and producers. But there is a gap of research output and information for its cultural practice especially on optimum recommended fertilizers and spacing to improve its yield in Ethiopia. A field experiment was conducted in the 2012 to study the effects of plant spacing and urea fertilization on yield and yield components of Deteroit dark red beetroot cultivars. The experiment was a randomized complete block design (RCBD) arrangement. Plant spacing (16, 20 and 25 cm within plant) were combined with three Nitrogen rates (45, 52.5 and 60 gm/plot). The general objectives that was to know the effect of spacing and urea on yield and yield component of beetroot with specific objectives that were to determine appropriate spacing and urea fertilizer rate on Beetroot for optimum yield production by keeping other agronomic practices constant, to determine appropriate interaction effect of spacing and urea for optimum yield and yield components of beetroot, and to compile information for producers, researchers and students for further improvement of the crop with regard to spacing, urea fertilizer rate and other agronomic practice. As a result of finding significant influence (p<0.05) of spacing on leaf width, leaf area and underground dry weight of beetroot at the lowest spacing over the control was observed while it did not show significant effect for the other parameters of yield and yield component of beetroot. Significant effect (p<0.05) of Urea was observed on leaf area and underground dry weight but not on other parameters. The interaction effect of both factors significantly encouraged (p<0.05) only underground dry weight. This is due to low competition that reduces dry matter of produce. Though there was no statistical difference, the highest yield was recorded with interaction effect of S1U1. This was due to high density of plant population per given area when compared with other treatment. Therefore it is summarized from the studied result that spacing at highest level (30*25cm) with lowest level of urea (45gm/plot) was found to be optimum for maximizing yield of beetroot by providing high underground dry weight that directly related to its yield.