Perbandingan Palm Peat dengan Media Tanam Lain pada Pembibitan Acacia crasssicarpa

Abstract

Most planting media in Industrial Timber Estate (HTI) nurseries use peat. Peat extraction from nature in large quantities can continuously cause environmental damage. Therefore, there is a need for alternative nursery planting media. Oil palm waste in the form of empty oil palm bunches (TKKS) is commonly found in oil palm plantation areas and community oil palm plantations near industrial timber estates. Processing palm oil waste into nursery planting media (palm peat) is one alternative to support the availability of planting media in nurseries. This research aims to find the optimum media composition for seedling growth of Acacia crassicarpa. The research design used was a Completely Randomized Design with five treatments (A1= topsoil, palm peat, and cocopeat 2 : 1: 1; A2= top soil and palm peat 2: 1; A3=top soil and cocopeat 2: 1; A4=cocopeat 100%; A5= palm peat 100%), five replications and three tree plots for each treatment. Treatment A1 got the highest seedling height of 36.6 cm, A4 gave the highest number of leaves, as many as seven leaves, and A2 gave the highest seedling diameter of 2.09 mm. The highest seedling sturdiness value was obtained in the A3 treatment at 15.63. Based on statistical tests, all growth parameters are not significantly different. This proves that palm oil waste can be an alternative for nursery planting media in Acacia crassicarpa..