Development of online reference of Indonesian rice variety.
Setyo Pertiwi, Abdul Karim Makarim, Sugeng Widodo, Bubun Muhammad Hasbulloh, T. Nagatsuka, S. Ninomiya · 2008
Rice (Oryza sativa) is an important food crop of Indonesia. It was cultivated over an area of 11.786 thousand hectares with average paddy yield of 4.62 ton per hectare during the year 2006. With continuous increase in population, the demand of rice is also growing; confirming that task of increasing rice production to all related components. Many factors contribute to the yields. Among others are seed quality and suitable varieties. The strategies for increasing yield are including supply of quality seed of varieties with high yield potential. Hundreds of improved varieties have been developed and introduced to the society. Those improved varieties usually are developed with specific purpose (criteria), such as certain pest resistance, certain taste (aromatic rice), certain grain shape, etc. However, due to ineffective information sharing and dissemination system, adoption of the improved varieties for specific location and preference is often become problematic. This paper discussed about a work being carried out for developing an online reference system for rice cultivation with special emphasis on rice variety. The system consists of database of improved rice varieties and its characteristics, application program for identifying the recommended rice variety for certain location and preference, and application program for estimating harvest time and yield based on transplanting time input. Location indicates agro-ecological aspect of rice cultivation such as soil characteristics, altitude, rain intensity as well as irrigation method while preference is dealing with expectation of the system users on several rice characteristics. Heat units (degree-days) concept is used for estimating the harvest time and potential yield. The system is developed by using VB.Net. It is intended to be used by researchers, consultants, field extension officers, and or practitioners in exploring the available rice variety and rice variety selection for cultivation.