The relationship of some characteristics of peat with oil palm basal stem rot (BSR) caused by Ganoderma in peatlands

Abstract

Indonesia as the largest palm oil producer in the world, has the large percentage of oil palm on peatland, always associated with the issue of global warming that has triggered climate change. The serious problems of cultivating oil palm on peatland is the presence of BSR disease caused by Ganoderma. There are no effective methods to control this disease. Biological control is an environmentally friendly alternative method focus, but on peatland, the development of this method is constrained by lack of information about the effect of peat environmental factors. This study aims to determine the effect of the characteristics and biological environment of peat on the intensity of Ganoderma attacks on oil palm. The relationship between the intensity of Ganoderma attacks, characteristics of peat, and biological properties of peat was carried out by correlation test. The correlation analysis showed that the groundwater level and the pH has correlated with Ganoderma attacks. While the biological properties showed no significant correlation, except Summed Dominant Ratio of vegetation which tends to positively correlate to the number of Ganoderma antagonists. These results indicate that peatland water table management and vegetation management by maintaining the diversity of vegetation around oil palm can help reduce Ganoderma attacks.