Fertilizer Management in Garlic Production in East Africa : Effect of Nitrogen and Phosphorus Fertilizer in Garlic production

Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is bulb vegetables used as spice and flavouring agent and medicinal plant. It is a cold weather crop with high water and nutrient requirement. Numerous problems are accounted for the low productivity of garlic in developing countries like Ethiopia among which fertilizer management is the major one. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus levels on growth and yield performance of two garlic varieties in central Ethiopia and economically judicious rate of N and P was determined for garlic production. Varieties showed a variation for the growth yield and yield attributes and bulb tissue N and P. growth , yield and yield attributes had also positively responded for the applied NP fertilizer and interaction between nitrogen and phosphorus had also affected the yield components of the crop. The highest economic benefit of 155037 ETB per hectare was obtained from the application of 100 kg N and 50 kg P2O5 per hectare in Tsedey92 variety. And obviously this book can help as a reference for researchers and as guidance for farmers who interested in garlic production with appropriate fertilizer management.