Abstract Tesisku

ABSTRACT

EFFECTS OF TRACTOR UTILIZATION ON OIL PALM( Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) YIELD AND SOIL PROPERTIES OIL PALM PLANTATION OF PT. HINDOLI (A CARGILLHOLDING COMPANY) SUNGAI LILIN
SOUTH SUMATERA
By
Saban

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) has provided substantial contribution to national economic growth. In additional, oil palm plantation has significantly increased farmers welfare. Indonesia is in fact the biggest oil palm producer in the world after Malaysia.

One of the problems of oil palm plantation is that the yield is still low. Improvement of cultural technicques expectedly can increase oil palm yield. One of way increasing yield is by employing mechanization, i.e. using tractors. This experiment was conducted to study effect of duration of mechanization, i.e. use of tractors on oil palm yield and physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil.

This experiment was carried out at estate Sungai Tungkal and Sungai Pelepah using survey method. Each estate was subjected to mechanization applied: one-year, two-year, and three year period of mechanization. In each blocks applied of mechanization was done in three replicates. Soil sample taken at track area of tractors by random. While yields of data taken away from by each estate during one year. One-year, two-year, and three-year was represented by planting year 2001/2002, 1999/2000, and 1997/1998, respectively. Data were analyzed with BIPLOT using descriptrive-explorative statistics. Difference in variable values was subjected to multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

The highest yield was achieved by three-year period of mechanization, i.e. 5.596 ton/ha/year, with regards to soil properties. There was no difference in carbonorganic content, total-N content, available-P, exchangeable-K, exchangeable-Mg, and soil cation exchange capacity among the htree treatments of mechanizations. There was difference in soil water content, bulk density, porosity, aeration pores, macro pores, permeability, and soil penetration depth. There was difference in populations of macrofauna, i.e. ants, termites, beetles, and other arthropods, and earth-worm at different depth of soil, 0-10 cm depth being mostly inhabited by earth-worm. Physical and chemical properties of soil in estate Sungai Tungkal and Sungai Pelepah is about the same. In term of macrofauna, however, estate Sungai pelepah had more macrofauna.