Growth of Porang Plants by Cutting the Midrib Tip and Providing Various Types of Biochar as an Intercropping in Interspace Oil Palm

Abstract

To increase the income of smallholder oil palm farmers through the developmentof a polyculture pattern, which is expected to increase the LER (land Equivalent Ratio) byplanting porang Plant, witch tolerant to low light intensity. This study aims to determine theeffect of cutting the tip of oil palm fronds to increase light interception and to evaluate varioustypes of biochar on the growth of porang plants, using a randomized block design (RBD)arranged in factorial with three replications. The first treatment factor is cutting the tip of thepalm frond (C), namely cutting 1 m (C1), cutting 2 m (C2), and cutting 3 m (C3). The secondtreatment factor is the type of biochar (B) namely rice husk biochar (B1), corn cobs biochar (B2), and coconut shell biochar (B3). The results showed that the interaction between thetreatments had a significant effect on plant height, the number of leaves, stem diameter, anddry weight of stalks. Overall, the results of this study provide hope for the development ofpolyculture oil palm plantations with porang plants to increase farmers' income and at the sametime become an alternative source of carbohydrates considering that porang is capable ofproducing tubers of up to 40-50 tons per ha.