The Potential of Intercropping Food Crops and Energy Crop to Improve Productivity of a Degraded Agriculture Land in Arid Tropics

Degraded agricultural lands in the arid tropics have low soil organic carbon (SOC) and hence low productivity. Poor farmers that their livelihoods depend highly on these types of lands are suffering. Cropping strategies that are able to improve the soil productivity are needed. In the present study, some intercropping models of food crops with bio-energy crop of castor (Ricinus communis L.) were tested to assess their potential to improve the degraded land productivity. The intercropping models were: (1) castor - hybrid maize, (2) castor – short season maize, (3) castor – mungbean, and (4) castor –short season maize – mungbean. The results show that yields of the component crops in monoculture were relatively the same as in intercropping, resulted in a high Land Equivalent Ratio (LER). The highest LER (3.07) was calculated from intercropping castor plants with short season maize crops followed by mungbean with intercropping productivity of IDR 15,097,600.00 /ha. Intercropping has a great potential to improve degraded agriculture land productivity and castor is a promising plant to improve biodiversity and area coverage on the land

Kajian Aplikasi Pupuk Organik pada Tumpang Sari Tanaman Kelor-Selada di Lahan Kering

Lettuce and Moringa are recently popular vegetable crops because their demand improves significantly, and their development lead to dry land because its potencial in Indonesia is still high. The use of dry land should be followed by applying inter cropping technique in order to make plant micro climate becomes more favourable. In addition, low soil fertility and intensive ussage of inorganic fertilizers makes the application of organic fertilizers imperative. The objective of the research is to investigate the type of organic fertilizer giving high yield of lettuce and moringa cultivated using inter cropping technique in dry land. The results showed that the organic fertilizers applied improved the plant growth and yield, and also improved the land equivalent ratio (LER). The highest LER was showed by apllication of Organox, followed by Bio Extrim and Biota Plus, and the lowest one showed by without organic fertilizer application