Agronomic effectiveness of biochar and fertilizer type in increasing the results of sweet corn

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of biochar from bamboo and coconut shell combined with compost and NPK fertilizer on the growth and yield of sweet corn. In this study, we used a randomized block design with factorial patterns consisting of two factors and 3 replications. The first factor is the treatment of biochar types (3 types), namely: without biochar, bamboo biochar, and coconut shell biochar. The second factor is the treatment of fertilizer types (4 types), namely: without fertilizer, compost, NPK, and compost+NPK. The results showed that the interaction of bamboo biochar with compost+NPK significantly increased the total fresh weight of the highest plant 297.97 g when compared to without biochar, compost, and NPK 184.63 g or increased by 61.38% with an agronomic effectiveness of 132.10%. Likewise, the coconut shell biochar interaction with compost+NPK significantly increased the highest total fresh weight of 295.83 g when compared to the lowest yield without biochar, compost and NPK 184.63 g with an increase of 60.23% and agronomic effectiveness of 103.76 %. The application of compost+NPK fertilizer treatment significantly gives the highest fresh weight of cob without husk 79.26 g increased by 51.54% when compared with the lowest yield on 52.30 g fertilizer without fertilizer. From the results of this study, biochar from bamboo and biochar from coconut shell combined with compost+NPK can be used to improve the yield of sweet corn.