Method for Drying Maize Pollen

Abstract

Pollen managements consisted of suitable harvest timing, pollen drying to a certain misture content, pollen viability testing, and pollen storage. Maize pollen was sensitive to desiccation. This experiment was aimed to determine preservation technique in reducing pollen water content while maintaining its viability. Maize variety which used in this research was BIMA 3 as male line hybrid maize. Pollen viability testing used potassium iodide (KI) 1%. This experiment used randomized block design with 3 factors and 2 replicates, i.e. boron (H3BO3) fertilizers (0 and 3 kg ha-1 ), drying techniques (MgCl2, silica gel, zeolite, preservation in air-cond room (18±1 °C; RH43%), and drying periods (0, 2, 4, 6, 8 hours). The observation response of this experiment were viability and pollen weight changing. The result showed that there is no interaction between three factors to observation response, while drying technique and drying period combinations showed interactions to observation response. Pollen maize drying used silica gel for 4 hours was able to decline much pollen weight and maintain pollen viability better than other techniques.

Farmers' Response to The Application of Augmentorium in Technology to Conserve Fruit Fly Parasitoid on Snake Fruit in Yogyakarta

“…This is because augmentation technology for controlling snake fruit flies is a new innovation for most members of farmer groups, so farmers need more time to understand and know how to use and apply this augmentation technology in their farming fields. This result is in line with [30] and [19], stating that farmers take a long time to adapt to new innovations.…”

“…Farmers with a higher level of education will have broader insights and are more receptive to innovation [22; 23]. According to [19], respondents who have had quite a long experience in taking education are categorized as sufficient to comprehend and accept a new innovation.…”

“…The duration of farming is the length of time a farmer has been working as a farmer. Farmers who have been farming for a long time tend to be more agile in analyzing and choosing farming methods to make their farming more profitable [19]. Based on Table 1, over 82.86% of respondents are farmers, and they have been producing snake fruits for over 11 years, indicating sufficient experience in snake fruit production.…”