Savannah and central regions are the major maize production zones in Togo, but with maize grain yields at a threshold of only 1.5 Mg ha^-1. We use a participatory approach to assess the importance of the major three macro elements (N, P and K) for maize cropping in the two regions in order to further allow for site-specific and scalable fertilizer recommendations. Thirty farmers’ fields served as pilot sites, allocated within the two regions to account for spatial variability in soil inherent fertility and weather conditions. Five fertilization schemes were applied to maize crop at each site as a replicate plot of 10 m x 10 m (100 m²). The fertilization schemes were derived from a nutrient omission based approach and consisted of the following treatments: T1, control, no fertilizer application; T2,  full NPK fertilization at 120 kg N ha^-1, 60 kg P ha^-1 and 70 kg K ha^-1 (N₁₂₀P₆₀K₇₀); T3 (N₀P₆₀K₇₀); T4 (N₁₂₀P₀K₇₀); T5 (N₁₂₀P₆₀K₀).  Fertilizer P and K rates were applied two weeks after maize planting together with half of N fertilizer rate, and the remaining half of N was applied 40 to 45 days after planting. Maize grain yields were determined by harvesting a sub-plot of 16 m² delimited at the center of each plot of 100 m².  Mean yield data in the Savannah Region ranged from 0.56 to 4.57 and 0.32 to 3.02 Mg ha^-1 for the Tandjouare and Tone districts, respectively. In the Central Region, mean grain yields were between 1.60 and 3.70 and 1.05 and 3.46 Mg ha^-1 for the Tchaoudjo and Sotouboua districts, respectively. The fertilization treatment based ranking of the yield data clearly indicated that all the three macro nutrients (N, P and K) are needed for maize production in the two regions with a priority-based ranking being N > P > K. However, the data set showed significant variability in yields within and across region, indicating that site-specific fertilizer recommendation is needed at a district-scale to maximize nutrient use efficiency and to realistically fulfill crop nutrient need.