USU Lecturer Devotes to Making Organic Liquid Fertilizer
USU Lecturer Devotes to Making Organic Liquid Fertilizer
Published by
Bambang Riyanto
Published at
Thursday, 02 September 2021
MEDAN - Public Relations USU :A lecturer has an obligation to carry out the Tri Dharma of Higher Education which includes education and teaching, research, and community service. Based on these obligations, Lecturers from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of North Sumatra consisting of M Zulham Efendi Sinaga, MSi, Dr Sovia Lenny, MSi, Dr Andriayani, MSi, and Suharman, MSc, under the auspices of the Institute for Community Service of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (LPPM USU) carried out community service activities in Ujung Sampun Village, Karo Regency, through the Regular Mono Year Service scheme.
The theme of the service is the manufacture of organic liquid fertilizer. Ujung Sampun Village was chosen as a place of service because in the village, there is agricultural land such as orange gardens, potato gardens, cabbage, and others, whose waste can be used as raw material in making liquid fertilizer. Apart from waste from the garden, household waste can also be used to make liquid fertilizer so that farmer group partners and housewives can carry out service activities independently.
This activity is carried out in several stages, namely the composter-making stage, the organic liquid fertilizer-making stage, and the application stage to plants. The composter used in this service is made simply by utilizing buckets and barrels that farmer group partners easily obtain and then assemble to produce a composter. The process of making organic liquid fertilizer can be done in several stages: chopping household waste raw materials or agricultural waste and the fermentation stage.
In the fermentation stage, the team utilizes microorganisms from EM4 with the addition of molasses as its nutrients so that the microorganisms in EM4 can convert organic waste into liquid fertilizer. Several questions were asked during the process of making liquid fertilizer. One of them was asked by the Head of the Leo Napolisa Ginting Farmer Group about how long the fermentation process takes to produce organic liquid fertilizer. Also, questions were asked about whether molasses can be replaced with other materials.
The service team can explain questions from farmer group partners well and accept them. Some of these questions can show that the service partners are very enthusiastic about this service activity and directly show that the discussion is going well in two directions.
In this service activity, the team provided several agricultural equipment needed by partners, including composter tools and sprayers of various sizes (15 L, 5 L, and 2 L), which partners can use to apply the resulting organic liquid fertilizer. (RJ)
Author: Renny Julia Harahap - Public Relations
Interviewee: M Zulham Efendi Sinaga, M.Si et al. - FMIPA USU
Photographer: LPPM - Universitas Sumatera Utara
