Pre Scaling up of Soil Test Crop Response Based Phosphorous Calibration Study for Teff (Eragoritis Teff) Production at Guduru District, Western Oromia, Ethiopia

Pre scaling up of soil test crop response based phosphorous calibration study for Teff was conducted on farmer’s field at Guduru district, Horo Guduru Wollega Zone of Oromia Region, with the objectives to popularize and create wider demand on the importance of site specific crop response fertilizer recommendation in the study area. The trial was scaled up on 8 farmer’s fields across the district. The activity was under taken on a plot area of 50 m*50 m = 2500 m². A soil test was done to determine how much phosphorus fertilizer to use for crops. The recommended amount of nitrogen fertilizer is 46 kg per hectare. Teff variety “Dursi” was used with the seed rate of 15 kg/ha. A total of 4 FREG units which are having 50 male and 12 female members were established. For gender fairness, 19.4% of the participants were women farmers and 80% were men. A total of 48 farmers, 5 development agents, and 4 experts attended a training session during a mini field day that was held at the farmers' fields when the crops were ready to harvest. The highest mean grain yield (1842.5 kg/ha) was obtained from the soil test crop response based fertilizer recommendation. Finally, linkage was established with research center and district office of agriculture. Therefore, wider scaling up/out of soil test crop response based recommended P-fertilizers ought to oversee the promotion and management of phosphorus fertilizers that are recommended according to soil test results and crop reactions.