Improving the quality of acid soils to increase soybean yields and farmer's incomes

Abstract

Lampung Province has a great potency for increasing national soybean production, although most of the area is occupied by the acid dry land soils. The aims of the study were to determine the effect of three different packages of soybean cultivation technology on soybean growth and yield, the cropping index, and the farmers' income on an acid dry land soil of East Lampung. The experiments tested three packages of soybean cultivation technology, namely Local Farmer Technology, Site Specific Technology, and Recommended Technology. The treatments were arranged in a Randomized Block Design with 10 replications. The results showed that soybean yield of the Site Specific Technology was 1.33 t ha-1, which was significantly higher than that of the Local Farmer Technology, with a yield of 0.78 t ha-1. Meanwhile, the yield of the Recommended Technology was 1.26 t ha-1, which was not significantly different from the yield of the Site Specific Technology. There was increases in soybean yield and income by 66 and 30% with the application of the Site Specific Technology compared with the application of the Local Farmer Technology. Therefore, the Site Specific Technology might be recommended for increasing soybean production, especially in Lampung.