Organic mulch sheet formulation as an effort to help plants adapt to climate change

International Journal of Recycling of Organic Waste in Agriculture https://doi.org/10.1007/s40093-017-0189-z ORIGINAL RESEARCH Organic mulch sheet formulation as an effort to help plants adapt to climate change Aniek Iriany1 · Mochammad Chanan2 · Gunomo Djoyowasito3 Received: 24 February 2017 / Accepted: 19 December 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract Purpose This study aimed to discover the precise material composition and thickness (water hyacinth, rice straw, and banana pseudostem) of organic mulch sheet. Methods This current research was conducted by means of a number of treatments with various material compositions and thickness of organic mulch sheet. Several tests were administered such as chemical analyses on organic mulch sheet, tensile strength, and Vilensky test. Result Various compositions of materials resulted in various chemical analyses of organic mulch sheet. Organic mulch with the strongest tensile strength was during the treatment of 60% water hyacinth, 20% rice straw, and 20% banana pseudostem, reaching 3.28 N/m2. The highest sunlight intensity of mulch composition was during the treatment of M4 (50% water hyacinth, 40% rice straw, and 10% banana pseudostem) with no hole and absorbing. Conclusion The result showed that water hyacinth, rice straw, and banana pseudostem could be used as the materials for organic mulch sheets. They could add organic matters into the soil, have endurance and strength to apply as mulch in crop cultivation, as well as help plants adapt to climate change. Keywords Organic mulch sheet · Organic matters · Tensile strength · Vilensky · Climate change Introduction Mulch is a soil cover that functions to maintain soil temperature and humidity, inhibit the growth of weeds, also lessen soil erosion (Díaz-Pérez and Batal 2002; Kar and Kumar, 2007; Ekinci and Dursun, 2009; Sinkevičienė et al. 2009; Ibarra-Jiménez et al. 2011; Dvořák et al. 2012). In horticulture plantation, both organic mulch and inorganic mulch have been into a common use (Dvořák et al. 2001; George Hochmuth et al. 2002; Kasirajan and Ngouajio 2012; Cowan * Aniek Iriany 1 The Department of Agrotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, University of Muhammadiyah Malang, Malang, Indonesia 2 The Department of Forestry, Faculty of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, University of Muhammadiyah Malang, Malang, Indonesia 3 The Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Brawijya University of Malang, Malang, Indonesia 2013; Lakkenborg et al. 2014; Azad et al. 2015). Specifically, in this unstable climate and global warming condition (Wai et al. 2007), mulch is utilized to help plants adapt to climate change by modifying microclimate around the growing plants (Dvořák et al. 2001; Ibarra-Jiménez et al. 2011; Kasirajan and Ngouajio 2012). The following concern would be on the environment modification to optimize the growth of plants so as to improve potential production (Scholes et al. 1997; Peng et al. 2004; Widiatningrum and Pukan 2010; Kalra et al. 2013). The growth and productivity of plants generally are affected by rainfall, temperature, humidity, and soil fertility (Pereira and Nova 2008; Ayinde et al. 2011; Mahmood et al. 2012; Iriany et al. 2013; Nakano et al. 2013; Yaghi et al. 2013). Some previous studies have found that mulch usage increases plant productivity (Siwek et al. 2007; Miles et al. 2012; Haapala et al. 2015). Mulch has been into a common use in crop cultivation, yet with a number of drawbacks, such as the use of environmentally unfriendly synthetic materials that are hard to degrade (transparent plastic, PHP, etc.), apart from their high price that are less affordable for farmers (O’Brine and Thompson 2010; Coolong 2012; Kasirajan and Ngouajio 13 Vol.:(0123456789) International Journal of Recycling of Organic Waste in Agriculture 2012; Miles et al. 2012). However, the use of organic mulch from rice straw, litter, and others are unstable at the time. Accordingly, it is urgent to come up with alternative organic materials from the accessible surrounding environment to be made for organic mulch for the farming field with simple technology. Organic mulch requires modification into more effective and efficient forms in usage by modifying it into sheet forms. Besides, the use of paper as mulch has been developed in some patents such as using cellulose fibers with additional materials, cellulosic pulp with biodegradationretarding agent and addition of fertilizer to optimize mulch function (Wright 1936; Pratt and Medford 1955; Yoko et al. 1986; Peter. F et al. 2003). Most of these patents still used additional materials that are inorganic and relatively expensive to increase satisfactory mechanical strength. An organic material as a renewable resource contains wood or natural fiber called as cellulose. Organic mulch sheet made from fiber can be processed from natural cellulosic source such as kenaf, pineapple leaf fiber, banana fiber, coir, paddy straw, sugarcane, water hyacinth, corn cobs, and many more (Azubuike & Okhamafe 2012; Bhatnagar et al. 2015; Indriyati et al. 2016; Salleh et al. 2015; Main et al. 2014; Sarika et al. 2014; Teygeler 2000). These materials contain fiber waste similar to the materials for this current research. The use of organic fiber waste such as banana pseudostem, straw, and water hyacinth for the organic mulch sheet will improve soil properties as the combination of papermaking and organic fertilizer (Mawlana et al. 2014; Vidya and Girish, 2014). Natural organic mulch eventually breaks down and adds organic materials to the soil. Degradation or decomposition of organic mulch increases the amount of soil organic carbon (Bajorien et al. 2013). Hence, microbial activity in the soil will increase, especially microbial biomass supporting any enzymatic process in the soil (Jodaugienė et al. 2010; Moreno et al. 2011). The issue about the use of water hyacinth that has the ability to absorb heavy metal and will harm soil microorganism and the crop is not true. Metals such as iron, manganese, chrome, and cadmium were highly concentrated at the roots than other parts of the plant like leaves and stem. Commonly, the highest concentration of heavy metal in water hyacinth plant is in root, followed by leaves and stem, respectively (C.N et al. 2014; Das et al. 2016; Saha et al. 2017). Water hyacinth can be used as fertilizer, fish or animal feed and for mushroom cultivation. It means that water hyacinth can be used as an organic matter added into the soil. Previous researches showed that organic fertilizer from contaminated heavy metal water hyacinth and cow dung (mass ratio 1:5 and 1:1) did not exceed the limit of quantities of heavy metal and can be applied. Besides, compost of water hyacinth has a positive effect on the formation of macro-aggregates of the soil, water holding capacity, cation exchange capacity and non-significant changes (...truncated)