Oil palm yield at lowland area through groundtruthing of LiDar strip

Abstract

Many large oil palm plantation in Indonesia are located in lowland and flood prone areas, especially in South Sumatera. This causes the plant cannot produce optimally, do not grow well, and even death. The purpose of this research was to investigate the productivity of oil palm located in lowland and floodprone areas of Kelola Sendang Landscape, South Sumatera through groundtruthing (ground check) for validation of a GIS model. The research was conducted at lowland area of 6 (six) oil palm plantation companies located in the area of Musi Banyuasin District and Banyuasin District, South Sumatera Province. The result showed that the diversity of oil palm plant growth was quite high due to the number of inserted or abnormal plants and plant death. The low productivity of oil palm crops in lowland areas in the companies was caused by inadequate water management, lack of maintenance of plants, especially fertilization and weed control. The level of oil palm productivity in lowland areas were less than 50% of S3 standards land suitability class.