Effects of preceding crops and nitrogen fertilizer on the productivity and quality of malting barley in tropical environment.

The growing demand for malt has generated interest for improving productivity through sustainable means such as cropping sequences with malting barley along with optimum nitrogen (N) fertilization. Cropping sequence has many benefits for optimum yield and quality, but knowledge of rotational effects of preceding crops on malting barley is still limited. Thus, this study was conducted to determine the effects of legume and non-legume preceding crops, and N fertilization on productivity and quality of malting barley grown the following year in two locations in the southeastern highland of Ethiopia.