Effect of palm waste on sloping land to fresh fruit bunch production in oil palm plantation

Abstract

Palm waste is abundant and readily available. It is low cost and commonly used as a fertilizer on oil palm plantations. The effectiveness of oil palm waste on sloping lands in oil palm plantation was investigated. Data was collected from each block with sloping lands, including the type, dose, and timing of fertilizer, record of rainfall, and Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) production for each month. There was no significant difference on FFB production between the types of fertilizer: inorganic fertilizer, inorganic substitution with palm waste, and palm waste only. However, a significant difference on FFB production was found between types of sloping land. Optimum FFB production was 15.01 kg palm-1 month-1 for inorganic substitution with palm waste on undulating hilly (IH) areas. Fertilizing with only palm waste gave 15.93 kg palm-1 month-1 of FFB production on a flat gently sloping (FGS) area. It shows that palm waste has comparable potential with inorganic fertilizer, even when applied on sloping land.