MUAR: Sungai Balang, Muar has some of the many paddy fields in Johor. For the past few years, some problems were faced by the farmers in Sungai Balang, which led to decline in yield, resulting in losses. According to the farmers, the problems were affecting paddy field management, which included water scarcity, idle land, uneven land, poor soil quality as well as weedy rice growth. These resulted in a very low rice yield, which was less than 30%.
Therefore, under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme, the Malaysia-Japan Advanced Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia sought to improve the quality of the soil, which were reported to be of poor quality due to high use of chemicals in hope to increase yield. The programme also exposed the public to the uses and benefits of organic fertilizers. The programme was carried out for about 3 months, from February to April 2020. The activities conducted during the programme included spraying organic fertilizers into the paddy fields as well as monitoring paddy growth.
The programme utilized organic fertilizers made by using the subcritical water (SCW) technology. The SCW technology can treat a wide range of organic waste (food waste, biomass, agricultural waste, etc.) to produce value-added products such as solid and liquid organic fertilizers. It does not use chemicals, which makes it a good alternative to the production of organic fertilizers from solid waste as environmental impacts can be reduced through controlled carbon footprint.
The fertilizers introduced during the paddy’s vegetative phase brought forth an increase in rice yield in the 1-acre land by 400 per cent, from 1.9 tonnes in the last season to 7.7 tonnes.
Organic fertilizers are able to improve the quality and productivity of plants as well as the texture and structure of soil. They also improve soil fertility, which affects plant growth as well as root system durability. In addition, organic fertilizers could improve paddy’s immune system against germs and insect attacks as well as promote plant and fruit development by increasing the absorption ability of nutrients in the plants. They lead to high yields, fruit development, satisfactory growth, high roots, effective absorption of water and fertilizers, healthy and green plants and rapid growth of plants. The use of organic fertilizers to promote healthy and nutritious plant growth is highly recommended as they do not cause any harm to nature.
