Evaluation of Lime Recommendation Methods on Soil Properties and Yield of Wheat on Acid Soil in Fagita‐Lekoma, Northwestern Ethiopia

The problem of soil acidity is one of the obstacles to raising crop productivity in the Ethiopian highlands, particularly in the Fagita‐Lekoma district. The field experiment was conducted at Fagita‐Lekoma in three locations during the 2022 cropping season to evaluate the most suitable lime recommendation method on soil chemical properties and wheat yield on acid soils. The experiments were laid out in RCBD with three replications and six treatments (control; lime requirement (LR) based on Exchangeable acidity, LR based on Modified Mehlich for a target pH 5.5, LR based on Modified Mehlich for a target pH 6.0, LR based on Adams Evans for a target pH 5.5, and LR based on Adams Evans for a target pH 6.0). The results showed that adding lime significantly increased the soil’s pH, exchangeable acidity, Al 3+ , and available P. The highest wheat grain yield (GY) (2198.4 kg·ha −1 ) and biomass yield (6866.1 kg·ha −1 ) were obtained from LR based on Adams Evans for a target pH of 6.0 and LR based on Modified Mehlich for a target pH of 5.5, respectively. On the other hand, the GY (313.1 kg·ha −1 ) and biomass output (1495.7 kg·ha −1 ) were lowest in the control treatment. Hence, the application of LR based on Modified Mehlich for a target pH 5.5 was the most recommended and economically feasible for wheat production and soil fertility improvements in the study area, which provided the net benefit of (44,463.24 ETB·ha −1 ) with an acceptable MRR of (224.67%).