Impact of Wheat Row Planting on Yield of Smallholders in Selected Highland and Lowland Areas of Ethiopia

Wheat row planting has been seen as good agronomic practice for increasing wheat yield in Ethiopia. Agricultural extension activity is concerned with the promotion and scaling-up of wheat row planting. Farmers have been practicing the row planting manually since 2009. However, there is lack of empirical study on the impact of row planting on wheat yield compared to the conventional broadcast planting method in highland and lowland wheat producing agro-ecologies. To fill this gap, this study estimates the impact of row planting on wheat yield of farmers. Cross-sectional survey data collected from randomly selected 248 farmers, logit model, and propensity score matching methods were used to achieve the objective of the study. The study obtained that wheat row planting has significant impact on wheat yield of farmers in the selected highland agro-ecology; and it has non-significant yield impact in the lowland agro-ecology. The mean yield of row planted wheat was higher by 13.9 percent when compared to the mean yield of conventional broadcast planting method in the highland area. It is recommended that other agronomic practices along with the row planting method need to be considered for increasing wheat yield as well as for the successful promotion, adoption and scaling up of best agronomic practices.