Abstract:
Baby corn production is a new venture in Ethiopia, which may help to improve the economic
status of poor farmers and help boost agriculture in Ethiopia. To make use of this potential
new crop, optimizing the agronomic practices like intra row spacing and nitrogen fertilizer is
quite necessary. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the purpose of evaluating
the effects of nitrogen fertilizer and intra row spacing on the growth and yield of baby corn.
The study was conducted during 2020/2021 irrigation season at Koga Irrigation Scheme,
North Mecha district of Amhara Region where the baby corn variety of SG-17 Baby corn was
used as test crop. The experiment consisted of factorial combination of five nitrogen levels (0,
80, 120, 160 and 200 kg ha
-1
N) and three intra row spacing (15, 25 and 35 cm). The
treatments were arranged in factorial Randomized Complete Block Design with three
replications. Data on phenology, growth and yield parameters of Baby corn were collected
timely as per their respective standard procedures and analyzed using SAS version 9.4. The
results of the study had shown that intra row spacing and nitrogen fertilizer influenced most
of the tested parameters. Accordingly, the tallest plant height (165 cm), highest marketable
yield (8.3 t ha
-1
), unmarketable yield (1.3 t ha
-1
), total yield (9.6 t ha
-1
) and stover yield (21.5 t
ha
-1
) were recorded from treatment combination of 200 kg ha
-1
N × 15 cm intra row spacing.
The same treatment combination also generated the highest net benefit (417,797 ETB ha
)
with acceptable MRR (3992.3%), which can be recommended for profitable production of
Baby corn under irrigation in the study area and areas with similar agro-ecologies. As the
study was conducted at one location for a single season, repetition of the study across
different representative agro-ecologies and seasons is also recommended.