Vol. 6, Issue 1, Part A (2024)

Mung bean is becoming an important pulse crop in dry land areas of Ethiopia. However, its productivity is influenced by intra row spacing and nutrient management in a given environment. Accordingly, a field experiment was conducted to determine the optimum level of intra row spacing and NPS fertilizer rate for enhanced productivity of mung bean in Arba Minch district. It was carried out during the 2021 cropping season and the treatments consisted of factorial combinations of four intra row spacing (5, 10, 15 and 20 cm) with five NPS fertilizer rates (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kg ha^-1) laid out in RCBD with three replications. Results revealed that interaction of intra row spacing and NPS fertilizer rate was significant (p<0.05) for number of days to maturity, plant height, number of pods per plant, dry biomass yield, and grain yield. But, it was not significant (p>0.05) for number of days to flowering, nodulation parameters, number of primary branches per plant, number of seeds per pod and hundred seed weight. It was observed that NPS fertilizer rate highly significantly affected number of days to 50% flowering, number of primary branches per plant, and nodule parameters, the highest values of which were recorded for application of 200 kg ha^-1, whereas the highest number of seeds per pod, and hundred seed weight were recorded for 100 kg of NPS ha^-1. The result also showed that intra row spacing of 20 cm showed significantly higher values for number of days to 50% flowering, number of primary branches per plant, number of seed per pod and hundred seed weight. The interaction effect resulted in the highest number of days to 90% physiological maturity for recorded 20 cm with 200NPS kgha-1 while showed maximum values of plant height, leaf area index and above ground dry biomass yield for recorded 5 cm with NPS 200 kgha^-1. On the other hand, significantly higher values of number of pods per plant, seed yield, harvest index and net-return with acceptable MRR were recorded for intra row spacing of 10 cm with 100 kg of NPS ha^-1. Therefore, it was concluded that application of 100 kg NPS fertilizer ha-1 with 10 cm intra row spacing could enable producers to harvest better mung bean yield and get more economic return from the crop in the study area.