Effect of Plant Spacing on the Yield and Yield Component of Field Pea (Pisum Sativum L.) at Adet, North Western Ethiopia

Field pea is an important low-input break crops throughout the highlands of Ethiopia. The experiment was conducted on effect of spacing on the yield and yield component of field pea cultivars (pisum sativum L.) in 2012-213 cropping season at Adet Agricultural research station. Three intra row spacing’s (5 cm, 10 cm and 15 cm) and two inter row spacing (20 cm and 25 cm) were evaluated using two released varieties, Sefinesh and Megeri on a plot size of 5 m x 5m (25 m2). The experimental design was a completely randomized block with 12 treatments in three replications. JMP-5 (SAS) software was used to compute the analysis of variance, correlation and regression analyses. Main effects of variety and intra row spacing had significant effect (P<0.05) on plant height, number of seeds per pod, seed yield while inter row spacing did not affect all examined attributes. The overall highest seed yield was recorded when Sefinesh was planted in 15 cm intra row spacing followed by Megeri in 5cm intra row spacing. The experiment revealed that average yield of Megeri increased when intra row spacing decreased. The reverse is true for Sefinesh. Similarly, increasing the intra row spacing revealed a peak seed yield at approximately 15 cm intra row spacing in Sefinsh. More importantly, increase in inter and intra row spacing together leads to increase and decrease the seed yield of Sefinesh and Megeri, respectively. Hence, 25 cm inter row with 15 cm intra row and 20 cm inter row with 5 cm intra row spacing, respectively gave the highest mean seed yield, and thereby increase the productivity of filed pea cultivars in West Gojam, but the experiment should be tested under small scale farmers’ conditions.