USU Lecturers Initiate the Production of Organic Liquid Fertilizer
USU Lecturers Initiate the Production of Organic Liquid Fertilizer
Published by
Christoffel Daniel Yesaya Tambunan
Published at
Friday, 03 September 2021
A lecturer must carry out the Tridarma of Higher Education, which includes education and teaching, research, and community service. Based on this obligation, lecturers from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Universitas Sumatera Utara, consisting of M. Zulham Efendi Sinaga, M.Si., Dr. Sovia Lenny, M.Si., Dr. Andriayani, M.Si., and Suharman, M.Sc., under the supervision of the Community Service Institute of Universitas Sumatera Utara (LPPM USU), conducted a community service activity in Ujung Sampun Village, Karo Regency, through the Regular One-Year Community Service Scheme.
USU Public Relations – The community service project focused on producing organic liquid fertilizer. Ujung Sampun Village was chosen for this initiative because it has agricultural lands such as orange orchards, potato fields, cabbage farms, and others, whose waste can be utilized as raw materials for producing liquid fertilizer. In addition to agricultural waste, household waste can be used to make liquid fertilizer, allowing community service activities to be carried out independently by farmer groups and housewives.
This activity was carried out in several stages: the composting stage, the organic liquid fertilizer production stage, and the application stage to plants. The composting system used in this community service project was made simply by utilizing buckets or barrels that were easily accessible to the farmer group partner and then assembled to create a functional composter. Making organic liquid fertilizer involves several steps, including the chopping of household or agricultural waste materials and the fermentation stage.
During the fermentation stage, the team utilized microorganisms from EM4 with the addition of molasses as a nutrient, allowing the microorganisms in EM4 to break down organic waste into liquid fertilizer. Several questions arose during the fertilizer production stage. One of them came from the Head of the Farmer Group, Leo Napolisa Ginting, who asked about the duration of the fermentation process required to produce organic liquid fertilizer. Another question was whether molasses could be substituted with other ingredients.
The questions from the farmer group partners were well explained by the community service team and were acceptable to the partners. These questions indicated that the partners were enthusiastic about the program, demonstrating that the discussion was interactive and effectively conducted in both directions.
In this community service activity, the team provided several agricultural tools needed by the partners, including composting equipment and sprayers of various sizes (15 L, 5 L, and 2 L), which could be used by the partners during the application process of the organic liquid fertilizer produced.
