The effect of améliorant kind and its application time on soybean growth in tidal land soil

Abstract

Tidal swampland is one type of suboptimal land that can be developed to increase food crop production in Indonesia. However, tidal land contains a lot of Al3+ because it has acid soil reactions. Previous research found that the critical period for soybean plants against Al3+ stress was at the beginning of growth until 20 days after planting. This study aims to obtain the appropriate ameliorant to overcome Al3+ stress during the critical period of soybean growth. An experiment on the types of ameliorant and the application time was arranged in a randomized block design repeated three times. The kinds of ameliorant tested were no ameliorant, dolomite, husk charcoal, husk ash, and straw. Each ameliorant was given 2 tonnes ha−1 before planting in dry cultivation (DC), before planting in saturated soil culture (SSC), 10 days after planting (DAP) on DC, 10 DAP for SSC, 20 DAP on DC, and 20 DAP on SSC. The experiment results are consistent with studies of saturated soil culture, which show that soybean in water-saturated culture has better growth than dry cultivation. In all kinds of ameliorant and at all times, saturated soil culture had more effect on the growth and production of soybeans. The kind of ameliorant only affected the number of branches, and the highest number of branches was obtained in soybean treated with dolomite ameliorant. However, it was not significantly different from other ameliorants.