GROWTH OF DIFFERENT MORINGA VARIETY AS REHABILITATION PLANT MATERIAL ON MARGINAL LANDS
Abd. Hadid, Bau Toknok, Wardah, Abd. Syakur

Agrotecknology Department, Agricultural Faculty, Tadulako University

Abstract

Rehabilitation of marginal land is important to act as an effort to restore, maintain, and improve land function. However, the success of the rehabilitation program has not been optimal yet, this may be caused by the types set out in these activities are not site-specific and socially adaptive. Tree species determination in rehabilitation programs generally do not consider the limiting factors of the location, including slope tophography, poor in nutrients, low organic matter, low or high of soil pH. Moringa plants are able to adapt to extreme dry conditions and on low-fertility soils, so it is very conditional to be planted on marginal land rehabilitation. This proves that marginal land could be optimized the productivity through Moringa plant-based rehabilitation activities. However, the main obstacle in the development of a commodity is the availability of plant material that is ready for planting in large quantities. The long-term objective of this study is the establishment of a Moringa-based rural agro-industry on marginal lands. Whereas, the specific objective is to assess the growth of various varieties of moringa seedlings in various conditions of the growing environment (growing medium and light intensity) so that they may be even more adaptive on marginal lands. The study was conducted on community-owned land in Pangi Village, North Parigi District, Parigi Moutong Regency, using a factorial pattern randomized block design (RBD), which consists of three factors, namely variation in variety (J1, J2, J3, J4, J5), variations in growing medium (M1, M2, M3, M4) and variations in light intensity (C1, C2, C3). The results showed that there was an interaction between treatments on the observed parameters of plant height and number of leaves. The best on seedling height is the coarse yellow-stemmed moringa which is seeded on sandy soil under shading intensity of 75%. Whiles the parameters of the number of leaves, moringa seedlings that are able to form the most leaves are ash green stemmed varieties on sandy soils under shading intensity of 25%.

Keywords: Moringa oleifera, Rehabilitation, Marginal Land

Topic: Agriculture Productivity