The Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) together with the Banten Provincial Government developed superior biosaline seeds that are resistant to various weather conditions and soil nutrient conditions. This development was carried out considering that Banten has coastal areas that require special seeds, especially to speed up production.
Head of the Banten Agricultural Instrument Standard Implementation Center, Ismatul Hidayah, said that currently there are 118 hectares of rice fields in Banten that have planted local biosaline varieties.
“In Banten there are 118 hectares of both purple and blue labels. For purple labels, they can be used as seeds once more or become staple seeds to be replanted so that they become blue labels. Meanwhile, for blue labels, they must be consumed,” said Ismatul in a written statement, Saturday (13/4).
He said the Biosalin rice harvest in Banten had started in March and would continue until June 2024.
Head of the Banten Province Agricultural Service, Agus Tauchid, said that testing of biosaline varieties would still be carried out, especially on coastal land during the dry season, so brackish water had to be used.
“We will harvest around 5 hectares of Biosalin, produce seeds and we will carry out multi-location tests in coastal areas, both southern and northern,” said Agus.
Also read: Ministry of Agriculture: Rice Productivity in Banten is High, Indonesia’s Rice is Abundant
Agus said that the development of the Biosalin variety might help farmers on the coast to increase the Planting Index (IP) by up to three times the rice harvest. In fact, up to now, planting on the coast has only been done once a year.
“If we calculate the total, there are 20 thousand hectares of coastal rice fields. This is a very potential figure. So 20 thousand hectares, which usually has one planting period, means there is an opportunity to increase production for us to optimize with Biosalin,” he explained.
Calculated from this area, the potential for increasing production with biosaline might be profitable, capable of producing 60 thousand tons of GKG or 33 thousand tons of rice. (Z-11)
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