Abstract
Nutmeg (Myristica spp.) is a high economic value spice crops which is s pread on the whole area of Ternate Island , North Maluku province. Nutmeg is generall y cultivated using agroforestry system with many varieties of populations and species which is supposed to influence t he characteristics of nutmeg plants and micro climate. Thus, understanding the plant characteristics and micro climate of nutmeg plantation using agroforestry system is very important. Nutmeg plantation using agroforestry system is a mix between nutmeg as the main crop with other crops such as cloves, coconut and others. The focus of this research is to understand the characteristics of nutmeg , especially crop production components which cover the number and weight of seeds, micro climate as well as varia tions of population and diversity. This r esearch employed observation method in which the sample was purposively set as many as 30 plants, using point - centered q uarter sampling method . The results showed that agroforestry system a ffect the characteristics of nutmeg plants and the microclimate. The optimum plant population of 200 plants ha - 1 with diver sity of 1. 38, had higher number and seed weight target - 1 than the population of 100 plants ha - 1 with d iversity of 0.78 or population of 300 plants ha - 1 with di versity of 0.82.
Highlights
North Maluku Province, Indonesia, has long been known to the world as the center of nutmeg production, an indigenous plantation plant
Analysis of variance showed a significant effect of populations and diversity in the three nutmeg plantations using agroforestry system on the characters of nutmeg plants, namely branch number (Bn), leaf chlorophyll index (LCI), seed number target-1 (Snt), seed weight target-1 (Swt), diameter at breast height (DBH) total (DBHp), BA targets (Bat), BA total (BAp), ILD, canopy width (CWd), but not including the plant height (Table 1)
Duncan Range test showed that the most/biggest number of branches, DBH target (DBHt), total DBH, total BA and canopy width were found in agroforestry systems with 100 plants population ha-1 with diversity of 0.78 (Agf1) and it was significantly different with agroforestry system with 300 plants population ha-1 with a diversity of 0.82 (AgF2)
Summary
North Maluku Province, Indonesia, has long been known to the world as the center of nutmeg production, an indigenous plantation plant. Variation of populations and diversity of plant species in an agroforestry system relatively affect crop production (Belote et al, 2011), in the form of facilitation, competition or neutral (Futakuchi 2007; Umrani and Jain, 2010) based on the availability of space and the use of resources, which in turn it is expressed through the characters of the plants such as branch, canopy and economic value (He et al, 2005; Khorshidi, et al, 2009; Tjokrodiningrat, et al, 2013; Pretzsch, 2014; Cinar and Tug, 2015; Di Zhang, 2015). The results of analysis on each nutmeg plantation were used as a basis for resolving nutmeg crop production range problems
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