Floating Agricultural System Using Plastic Waste For Vegetables Cultivation At Swamp Area

Agricultural land at South Sumatra is mostly consisted of lowland swamp and tidal lowland swamp which is water flooded during wet season so that farmers cannot conduct their farm enterprise. Therefore, an effort should be developed when agricultural land is flooded by water in order to obtain farmer income. An effort to obtain agricultural income during water flooding on agricultural land is by the application of floating cultivation for vegetables. This study objective was to develop locally specific technology on flooded lowland swamp, i.e., cultivation technology of floating organic vegetables and to utilize flooded lowland swamp into productive land for agricultural cultivation of organic vegetables. This study was conducted from January to May 2014 at Sakatiga Village, Indralaya Utara Subdistrict, Ogan Ilir District, South Sumatra Province. This study was a part of integrated research consisting of three applied researches of vegetable organic farming cultivation covering of curly red lettuce, mustard greens and red pepper. The method used in this study was Factorial Randomized Block Design with 9 treatment combination and three replications for each treatment as well as 5 sample plants. The observed parameters were consisted of raft types made from plastic waste of mineral water packaging (250 mL plastic cup waste raft, 600 mL plastic bottle waste raft and 1500 mL plastic bottle waste raft) and
compost types (rush grass compost, wild lily grass compost and gegas grass compost). The results showed that 250 mL plastic cup waste raft gave better respond in term of growth and production for red pepper crop, whereas wild lily grass compost gave better respond in term of growth and production for all crops. Application of cultivation technology of floating organic vegetables on flooded lowland swamp had produced similar or even better yield than that of conventional cultivation system in dry land.