Effect Of Seawater On Physicochemical Characteristics Of Sumatra Lowland Peat

With an area of 21 million hectares which is equivalent to almost 11 of Indonesias land Peatlands have significant potential as agricultural and plantations area despite having a lot of problems such as excess water and bulk density is low acidity the ratio of carbon-nitrogen and cation exchange capacity is high availability of macro and micro nutrients are low and the presence of organic acids that are poisoned. On the other hand as archipelago country sea water is abundant and contain dissolved bases are high enough to be used as ameliorant for peat. This study was conducted by leached of peat soil that is placed in the PVC pipe with 10 cm in diameter and 50 cm in length by fresh water sea water fresh water brackish and sea water and incubating them for 4 and 8 weeks. The experiment use randomized block design non factorial and Duncan multiple range test in 1 and 5. The results showed that leaching by flowed vertically of freshwater brackish water and sea water on peat and incubated them for 4 and 8 weeks were able to increase the rate of decomposition is characterized by decreasing the ratio of CN decreasing CEC and rising exchange bases. But the acidity lowered more than 4 and EC also increase up to 4 dSm.