Growth of Porang Plants by Cutting the Midrib Tip and Providing Various Types of Biochar as an Intercropping in Interspace Oil Palm

Abstrak

To increase the income of smallholder oil palm farmers through the development
of a polyculture pattern, which is expected to increase the LER (land Equivalent Ratio) by
planting porang Plant, witch tolerant to low light intensity. This study aims to determine the
effect of cutting the tip of oil palm fronds to increase light interception and to evaluate various
types of biochar on the growth of porang plants, using a randomized block design (RBD)
arranged in factorial with three replications. The first treatment factor is cutting the tip of the
palm frond (C), namely cutting 1 m (C1), cutting 2 m (C2), and cutting 3 m (C3). The second
treatment factor is the type of biochar (B) namely rice husk biochar (B1), corn cobs biochar
(B2), and coconut shell biochar (B3). The results showed that the interaction between the
treatments had a significant effect on plant height, the number of leaves, stem diameter, and
dry weight of stalks. Overall, the results of this study provide hope for the development of
polyculture oil palm plantations with porang plants to increase farmers' income and at the same
time become an alternative source of carbohydrates considering that porang is capable of
producing tubers of up to 40-50 tons per ha.