An Analysis of Soil Erosion, Value of Crop Management and Conservation Practice Factor of Red Pepper Crop under Different Ridge Types

Abstract

Land use and management influence the magnitude of soil erosion. In general, erosion is the main factor that causes soil degradation.  To keep soil degradation does not occur and the land can be used sustainably, then the target of the erosion value should be equal to or smaller than the tolerable erosion. Among the different soil erosion risk factors, the crop management factor  and conservation practice factor (CP factor) is the one that policy makers and farmers can most readily influence in order to help reduce soil erosion rates. The objective of research is to analyze value of erosion and CP factor, that is combination of crop management factor (C) for red pepper and conservation practice factor (P) especially the ridges. The Research of determination the value of CP factor, on planting of red pepper with various soil conservation techniques have not been widely applied. This is important because the value of CP factor which is obtained will help in planning the management of land resources and in predicting the amount of erosion that will occur based on USLE if these plants will be cultivated. The research was conducted with field measurement approach method by model of erosion plots  with 2 x 20 meters size that is made at the  40 % slope.  Experimental design is using factorial randomized block design that are consist of two factors. The first factor is cropping pattern which are  monocultural red pepper (T₁) and intercropping red pepper with cabbage (T₂). The second factor is soil conservation technique which are the ridges in the direction of the slope as the control (K₁),  the ridges in the direction of the slope + the ridges cut off the slopes in every 6.6 meters (K₂), the ridges across the slope (K₃), and the ridges across the slope with 20° tilted (K₄). The research result shows  that the ridges across the slope that combined with red pepper + cabbage (T₂K₃ treatment)  is capable to decrease the erosion less than tolerable erosion limit (26,96 ton.ha^-1.yr^-1) and CP factor value is 0,04.

Keywords : CP factor, erosion, red pepper, soil conservation