The Level of Soil Erodibility in Cultivating Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) with Various Types of Plastic Mulch and Straw

Abstract

A Erodibility of the soil is the sensitivity of the soil to erosion, the higher erodibility value of the soil the easier the soil erodes. One way to reduce the rate of erosion is by covering the soil with mulch. The purpose of this study were (1) to determi ne the level of soil erodibility in various types of plastic mulch and straw planted with tomato plants, and (2) to determine the type of mulch that gives the lowest level of soil erodibility planted with tomato plants. The design in this study used a Completely Randomized Design with treatment consisting of tomato plants planted without mulch, tomato plants planted using black plastic mulch, tomato plants planted using silver plastic mulch, tomato plants planted using transparent and tomato plants planted using straw. The results showed that treatment without mulch and treatment with straw had a higher erodibility value than the beginning of the cultivation. While treatment using black plastic and using silver plastic had a lower erodibility value than the initial cultivation. In treatment with transparent mulch there was no change in the value of erodibility. Each treatment had different values but had the same level of category, which was very high. The type of mulch who had the lowest value was the treatment silver plastic mulch with an erodibilitas value of 0,58 at the beginning of cultivation and 0,55 at threemonths of planting age