| dc.description.abstract | Generally, dry land of agriculture is characterized by low soil fertility and availability of water for irrigation depend on rainfall. Therefore, development dry land agriculture is required conservation efforts intended to improve soil structure, reduce erosion, minimize loss of nutrients and increase water availability. Improvement of physical, chemical and biological soil properties can be done by using soil conditioner. This research aimed to formulate soil conditioner from rice straw raw material, waste vegetables market, cow dung and biochar. The research was conducted on April to September 2010 in plastic house was build in the field of university farm of Bogor Agriculture University in Cikabayan Darmaga, Bogor. Physical and chemical analysis were conducted in the laboratory of Department of Soil Science and Land Resources, Faculty of Agriculture, IPB, whereas biological analysis was conducted in the Plantation Research Institute. The research was initiated with the composting of rice straw and waste vegetables market materials. The resulting compost was used as the base material to formulate soil conditioner which were enriched by biochar, extraction of goat urine and manure and CuSO4. The results showed that the largest compost material depreciation occurred in compost D and B of 69,29% and 54,7%, respectively. Average of saturated water content of all compost were over than 200%, while bulk density were 0,36 g/cm3 (compost D), 0,29 g/cm3 (compost C), 0,22 g/cm3 (compost A) and 0,15 g/cm3 (compost B). Macro nutrients content (N, P, K and Mg) in compost C and D were lower than compost A and B, on the contrary Ca content of compost C and compost D were higher than compost A and B namely were 1,16% and 3,16%, respectively. Total population of microorganisms was different for each type of compost. The highest fungal population was found in compost A (5.05 x 105) and the highest bacterial population in compost C (4.45 x 1011). Compost which were formed from materials A and B were the best compost due to has a lower bulk density and higher of nutrient content (N, P, K, Mg, Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn and total fungal) comparing with C and D materials. The bulk density of briquettes soil conditioner after compaction treatment was 0,64 gr/cm3. Soil conditioner B has a higher of macro and micro nutrients contents than soil conditioner A, C and D. Soil conditioner A has a higher colonies of fungal (9.3 x 106) and soil conditioner D has a lot of colonies of bacteria (5,05 x 1011). Based on the nutrients content, soil conditioner with formulation B is the best formulation as compared with formulations A, C and D. | en |
