In this study, we aimed to improve rice farmers’ productivity and profitability in rainfed lowlands through appropriate crop and nutrient management by closing the rice yield gap during the dry season in the rainfed lowlands of Indonesia. The Integrated Crop Management package, involving recommended practices (RP) from the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD), were compared to the farmers’ current practices at ten farmer-participatory demonstration plots across ten provinces of Indonesia in 2019. The farmers’ practices (FP) usually involved using old varieties in their remaining land and following their existing fertilizer management methods. The results indicate that improved varieties and nutrient best management practices in rice production, along with water reservoir infrastructure and information access, contribute to increasing the productivity and profitability of rice farming. The mean rice yield increased significantly with RP compared with FP by 1.9 t ha−1 (ranges between 1.476 to 2.344 t ha−1), and net returns increased, after deducting the cost of fertilizers and machinery used for irrigation supplements, by USD 656 ha−1 (ranges between USD 266.1 to 867.9 ha−1) per crop cycle. This represents an exploitable yield gap of 37%. Disaggregated by the wet climate of western Indonesia and eastern Indonesia’s dry climate, the RP increased rice productivity by 1.8 and 2.0 t ha−1, with an additional net return gain per cycle of USD 600 and 712 ha−1, respectively. These results suggest that there is considerable potential to increase the rice production output from lowland rainfed rice systems by increasing cropping intensity and productivity. Here, we lay out the potential for site-specific variety and nutrient management with appropriate crop and supplemental irrigation as an ICM package, reducing the yield gap and increasing farmers’ yield and income during the dry season in Indonesia’s rainfed-prone areas.

Penelitian ini dilaksanakan di Laboratorium Lapang Kandang Ayam KUB Balai Pengkajian Teknologi Pertanian Sumatera Utara. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan pada bulan Januari sampai April tahun 2020. Ayam yang digunakan adalah ayam Kampung Unggul Balitbangtan (KUB) dan Ayam Sentul Terseleksi (Sensi) umur 0-11 minggu sebanyak 80 ekor. Pemeliharaan dilakukan selama 11 minggu. Pakan diberikan secara ad libitum selama pemeliharaan. Pakan komersial (crumble) diberikan pada anak ayam umur sehari (DOC) hingga umur 4 minggu, umur 4-12 minggu diberi perlakuan berupa pakan komersil murni dan campuran pakan lokal. Uji T-test digunakan untuk mengetahui perbedaan penggunaan pakan terhadap bobot badan, pertambahan bobot badan dan mortalitas pada ayam KUB dan ayam Sensi. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, pakan komersil berpengaruh nyata pada bobot badan ayam Sensi pada umur 9 dan 11 minggu dan umur 5, 8 dan 11 minggu pada ayam KUB. Pakan komersil juga berpengaruh nyata terhadap pertambahan bobot badan pada ayam Sensi. Tingkat kematian ayam Sensi dan KUB pada umur 0-4 minggu mencapai 4-5% dan umur 4-11 minggu mencapai 2-3%.

The North Sumatera province has the fifth largest goat population in Indonesia after Central, East, Lampung and West Java. Meanwhile, solid and liquid goat manures have great potential as a source of organic fertilizer. Therefore, this study aims to examine the potential of goat manure as a source of organic fertilizer and its role in improving soil quality, growth and crop production. The data were collected from the Central Bureau of Statistics and the results of previous studies. Furthermore, the potential of goat manure was calculated by multiplying the total goat population in North Sumatra by the goat manure production /head/day and converted to one year. The parameter measured was the total goat population in North Sumatera, goat manure production/head/day, and the covered agricultural land area. The results showed that goat manure only fulfilled 3.69% of the agricultural land area in North Sumatera. In addition, the case study in Deli Serdang District showed that the application of goat manure compost with biourine and balanced inorganic fertilizers increased red chilies’ productivity by 46%. Therefore, it was concluded that the potential of goat manure as organic fertilizer is still very low.

Rice is the staple food and its cultivation requires a specific land condition. The population growth, urbanization, and plantation expansion together with socio-economic development are the driving factors of the riceland decline in Deli Serdang Regency of North Sumatera, Indonesia. As a consequence, likely availability and sustainability of rice production are threatened. Hence, it is important to understand how the future landuse and population change will affect the riceland area and production. In the lack of spatially simulated information for the future which could be useful in planning the riceland areas, the study objectives were to project the landuse change by 2040 under three scenarios, Business as Usual (BAU), Potential Riceland Protection (PRP) and Conservation Oriented (CO), and to investigate the impact of consumption demand on the sustainability of rice production. Landsat satellite data of 2009 and 2018, several spatial GIS data, and survey data were analyzed in ArcGIS, Dyna-CLUE, and SPSS software to generate the landuse classification and to simulate the future landuses; while the population projection by 2040 was derived from a Geometric Model. The results showed that forest and riceland areas will decrease with the continuous increase of plantation and urban areas under BAU scenario, but could be protected and increased under PRP scenario. The sustainability of rice production depends not only on the total riceland area, but also the productivity, the population growth, the consumption rate, and the policy. The simulated results of three scenarios serve as an important input to planning for protecting the riceland areas and thus sustained rice production in Deli Serdang Regency.

The research was conducted to see the forage production, carry capacity and rotation cycle that was most suitable for grazing cattle in the ecosystem of oil palm plantations. The research was conducted at Tanah Itam Ulu Oil Palm Plantation, Tanah Itam Ulu Village, Lima Puluh District, North Sumatra from January-December 2017. The research used RCBD consisting of 3 x 3 with 3 replications. The first factor is the age of oil palm trees (6, 12 18 years), the second factor is the rotation cycle of forage (40, 50, 60 days). The parameters observed: forage production, cattle capacity, forage nutritional and botanical composition. The research results showed that forage production and carrying capacity had a significantly higher effect (P <0.05) with a harvest interval of 40 days at the location of juvenile oil palm, which was 11,962 kg dry matter /ha/year and carrying capacity was 1.31 AU/ha. Forage quality (protein, NDF and ADF) had no significant effect (P> 0.05). The dominant forage species appeared in almost all observation plots, namely Cyrtococcum and Axonopus. The results of the study concluded that oil palms of 12 years with a harvest rotation of 40 days provided the largest capacity for grazing beef cattle.