Optimizing degraded steep upland paddy field under no tillage practice using leaf mulching and earth-worms

Abstract

A field experiment project was conducted in Karawang District, Indonesia from April to October, 2016 in the search of efforts to optimize degraded steep upland paddy field and paddy yield. The experinment was designed under no tillage practices and statistical randomized block were applied with two factors, that is, banana leaf mulch, and worms where each factor is varied into four levels of treatments with three times-replication, respectively. Results showed that both banana leaf mulch and worms significantly improved the soil physic properties of degraded land such as reduced soil bulk density by 28%; increased soil water capacity by 144%; increased total porosity by 24.5% ; and soil permeability from 1.12 to 29.34 cm/h. While, the regression/corelation of this improvement to the paddy (dry-land paddy rice) tiller and yield is strong at R 2 = 0.54 and R 2 = 0.72, respectively.