Rice Yield Related to Fertilizers Applied by Farmers on Two Areas of Marginal Peat Soil in Bengkulu Indonesia

Abstract

The research was intended to identify amounts of fertilizers applied by small-scale farmers related to rice yield cultivated on marginal peat soils in irrigated paddy fields in Bengkulu. The study was conducted at two peat areas; Pekik Nyaring Village, Air Hitam irrigated rice fields in Central Bengkulu and Sumber Makmur Village, Air Manjuto irrigated areas, Mukomuko Bengkulu Province from June to September 2020. A combination of purposive, snowballing samples was used to find 65 farmers as key informants. Collected data and information about fertilizers applied by farmers for paddy cultivation. Multiple regression analysis was used to find cumulative and partial contribution and significance effect of the fertilizers applied to rice yields. The result showed that fertilizers applied by the farmers significantly increase rice yield but the fertilizers played not great portion and urea fertilizer gave the highest contribution. Rice yield harvested by farmers was lower compare to the average rice productivity in Bengkulu because the doses of fertilizers applied were lower than the recommend dose. Rice yield can be improved through increasing the fertilizers dose. Optimum dose of fertilizers applied should be 567 kg Urea ha^-1, 323 kg SP-36 ha^-1, 790 kg ha^-1 or 912 kg NPK ha^-1. High soil porosity and lateral water conductivity however may cause inefficiency of fertilizers applied in marginal peat soils because soluble nutrients in peat solution carried out the fertilizers from root zone by water flow.