Effect of bulbil sizes on growth and corm yield of porang (Amorphophallus muelleri Blume) grown on alfisol soil

Abstract

Porang (Amorphophallus muelleri Blume) is one of the agribusiness crops in Indonesia and has been becoming an important income source for Indonesian farmers. Since decades ago, porang has been harvested from the forest as its natural habitat, under a shading environment. Due to its high economic value, more farmers have cultivated porang on open land. The present investigation was undertaken on Alfisol soil in the glasshouse, which mimics an open growing environment. The present research aimed at evaluating the effect of different bulbil sizes on the growth and corm yield of porang on Alfisol soil. Five different sizes of porang bulbil as treatments [1.88 + 0.054 g, 2 = 3.21 + 0.044, 3 = 4.21 + 0.043, 4 = 6.45 + 0.04 and 5 = 9.10 + 0.22 g/bulbil] were laid out in completely randomized design and each treatment was replicated 3 times. All data obtained were analyzed by employing the standard deviation from 3 replicates for each treatment. Plant height and plant diameter at an earlier growing stage significantly increased with an increase of bulbil size. Bigger bulbil size also improved significantly the shoot dry weight, the corm diameter, the corm thickness and the fresh weight of corm at harvest. The highest value in all variables measured was attained by the biggest size of bulbil. The present research work suggests to use a bigger bulbil size as much as possible in order to produce a higher corm yield.