Ati Dwi Nurhayati

Impact of Fire on Natural Regeneration in Peat

Fire is one of the most effective tools in disappearing vegetation community, where it was depend on the characteristics of burning itself and also the performance of the site being burnt. Previous research in mineral soils showed that repeated burning occurred at the same place trend to clean the vegetation which finally leads to have the land with lower number and quality of species left, while in peat land it was not fully understood. The research objective is to understand the vegetation dynamics following peat fires in the fibric peat type at the land preparation area using fire belong to the local community located in the Pelalawan district, Riau province, Indonesia during the dry season in the year 2001. Before slashing and drying, /0 tree species and 4 species of under storey vegetationfound. The site was dominated by Uncaria glabrata at seedling stage, Garcinia rostrata at sapling stage, Shorea macrophylla at pole stage and Pandanus immersus at understorey. After slashing and followed by 4 weeks drying then continued by burning with high flame temperature range from 8750(; to 900°C, it had been found that 3-months follOWing burning the site was dominated by Garcinia-rostrata at seedling stage and Cyperus halpan at understorey, while 6-months following burning the site was dominated by Eugenia jambos at seedling stage and Cyperus hal pan at understorey. Three months following burning species left to be only 4 species with 115 individuaVha (3 species from original and 1 new species emerge), and at 6 months following burning still 4 species left with 250 individuaVha.Meanwhile in understorey vegetation, 3 months following burning the species increased to be 7 species with 746 individuaVha (3 species left unchanged, I species disappeared and 4 new species emerge) and 6 months following burning the species left still 7 species with 1235 individuaVha. This means thatfire stimulate the increasing number of under storey vegetation.Agribusiness of herbal medicine is more important in the future due to raw material pharmaceutical industry tends to use materials naturally produced To develop herbal medicine with high quality requires the criteria of land suitability based on yield quality, which is represented by active compounds. The compounds are resulted from secondary metabolite that is related to environmental conditions. The purpose of this study was to generate the land suitability criteria for curry with curcuma production base. A total of 49 curry plantation sites were sampled for plant age, productivity, and land characteristics, as well as soil and rhizome samples for laboratory analysis. Age-adjusted curcuma production was used as the yield response, which were plotted against land characteristics. Boundary lines confining the resultant scatter of points were then mathematically described. The boundary lines defined curcuma yields that may occur under a given set of conditions and could be used to determine land suitability criteria. The criteria were done by using projection of line intersection between boundary line and yield cut off. Land characteristic and curcuma yield relationships had similar pattern, the scalier data were more skewness with higher yields and the scalier confined by boundary lines. By using the lines, every land characteristics that were studied, could be determine to establish land suitability criteria for curry, except for water availability and aluminum saturation.