Dr Amsalu Nebiyu is a plant and soil expert and currently employed as an associate Professor in the department of horticulture and Plant sciences at the College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (JUCAVM), Jimma University.

His research interest focuses on understanding the adaptation and physiological mechanisms of plants growing in highly intensified cropping systems in nutrient poor soils of Ethiopia involving cereals and legumes. In these systems, nitrogen and phosphorous are the most limiting factors to crop productivity. He is interested in addressing issues related to N and P-nutrition of crop plants (legumes and cereals) grown in nutrient poor soils of Ethiopia. Although Ethiopia is endowed with huge amounts of leguminous plants, the potential contribution from N2 fixation by leguminous crops is not well established. There is a potential of screening and recommending high N2 fixing legume genotypes and the isolation of efficient symbiotic microorganisms from the natural eco-systems which can contribute significantly in transforming the nitrogen fixation in different cropping systems.

Currently, he is coordinating a project (soil fertility) funded by VLIR-UOS (Belgium). He is also involved as co-PI in different collaborative research projects (e.g., Indigenous bio-fertilizer development and biochar for sustainable soils- both funded by collaborative crops research program (CCRP) of the McKnight foundation). He has also submitted a project proposal to the CCRP of McKnight foundation titled: “Inter and Intra-specific Variation in Agriculturally Important Legumes and Interaction with Local Context and Needs”

Key Research Areas
• Food legume adaptation to nutrient poor soils and climate change.
• The ecological physiology of food legumes grown in different cropping systems.
• Phosphorus nutrition of food legumes.
• Estimation of N2 derived from atmospheric fixation by food leguminous crops in agricultural farming systems.
• Promoting biological N2 fixation in agricultural systems by exploiting efficient macro and micro symbionts.
• Use of organic fertilizer in agriculture by promoting soil microbial activity through the use of: i) Biofertilizers: (Rhizobial and Mycorrhizal inoculants) ii) Organic matter from different sources iii) bio-char derived from locally available biomass resources.