Planting Time and Fertilizer Validation Based on Banyudono Planting Calendar in Boyolali Regency

Abstract

Nowadays, information technology on planting calendar and fertilizer dosage remains research challenges, in Indonesia, especially for end user farmers. Integration of the planting calendar (then called as KATAM – ‘Kalender Tanam’), has raised many benefits for users since it provides the basic recommendations for seed and fertilizer needs. This research aims to validate the benefit of using Integrated KATAM as guidance for rice planting and fertilizing in Bangak Village, Banyudono Sub-district, with an area of around 6,100 m². Two different approaches was performed: (i) interviewing farmers about planting date, variety, growth phase, water resource, and their technology to anticipate climate change, and (ii) calculating the rice productivity under different planting date, planting pattern, fertilizer dosage, and variety. Two treatments were used simultaneously on the field within the same planting calendar based on KATAM. The first treatment was a combination of planting date and fertilizer dosage for Situ Bagendit variety, while the second was two fertilizer dosages applied on two rice varieties (Ciherang and Situ Bagendit).  Field activity was held on May-August and June-September 2016. The results found that around 60% of the farmers in Banyudono Sub-district did not applied the integrated KATAM recommendation on planting time. During a year of validation period (2016), 80% of the farmers applied the rice-rice-rice pattern, and the remaining applied rice-rice-palawija. Our findings revealed that most farmers preferred to use Situ Bagendit variety as its higher tolerance to drought and higher potential yield. By applying KATAM recommendation, Situ Bagendit rice variety gave the highest productivity up to 8.89 ton/ha compared to other rice varieties. Further the research highlights the use of KATAM recommendation may increase rice productivity especially when Situ Bagendit is applied.