Abstract:
Bread wheat (Ttriticum aestivum L.) is the most important crop in North Western Ethiopia.
However, its productivity is very low as compared to its potential and productivity of world
bread wheat due to poor agronomic practices like inappropriate seeding rate, improper
adjustment of row spacing, and other factors. Field experiment was conducted at Debere-Elias
farmer’s field in East Gojam zone, at Wonberema farmer’s field and at Adet research station,
in west Gojam zone during 2018 main cropping season to assess the effect of seeding rate and
row spacing on yield and yield component of bread wheat. Eight seeding rates (75,100, 125,
150, 175, 200, 225 and 250 kg ha
-1
) and two row spacing (20 and 30 cm) were tested in factorial
arrangement in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. The results
from analysis of variance showed that most of the agronomic parameters like total tiller,
effective tiller, and grain yield were significantly affected by the main effect of seeding rate in
all locations. Whereas almost all yield and yield components of bread wheat were not affected
by row spacing. The interaction effect of seed rate and row spacing affected grain yield highly
significantly in all location. Hence, at Adet seeding rate of 150 kg ha
-1
with 20 cm row spacing
gave the highest grain yield (4840.9 kg ha
-1
) whereas at Wonberema and Deber-Elias seed rate
of 175 kg ha
-1
with 30 cm row spacing gave better grain yield (3770.5 and 3698.7 kg ha
),
respectively. However, further study has to be done under different locations and cropping
seasons to exploit the recommendation of the present study.
Keywords: Amhara Region, grain yield; Hectoliter weight, productivity