NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT FOR RUBBER PLANTATION USING GOAL PROGRAMMING

Abstract

Farm management must have proper planning on the resources such as fertiliser, labour, water and pesticide. Fertiliser provides healthy growth to the plant. It is one of the important resources the farm needs. Thus, the usage and allocation of fertilisers must be managed wisely to avoid wastage that incurs costs. This paper presents a case study which focuses on the nutrient management of rubber plantations. The main objective is to minimise the cost of chemical fertilisers used to plant rubber. Besides, the sub-objectives are to determine the best weight combination for fertilisers and calculate the mass per hectare of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium needed for the rubber trees. The goal programming approach has been applied to solve the problem. In the model formulation, there are seven decision variables representing chemical fertilisers, while the constraints are the cost of chemical fertilisers and the requirement of the upper and the lower limit of nutrients in the chemical fertilisers. Results indicate that this method can meet all the goals expected. In conclusion, this study shows that goal programming is suitable for modelling plant input, cost and constraint of rubber farm management.