Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 2)

Ok, in this part I will talk again about seedling but this time it is from seed. The best way to get good quality seeds is by buying it from authorized seller. The seed sold by them usually certified and tested (minimal viability is 80%). Viability means in general "capacity for survival" and is more specifically used to mean a capacity for living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions. But if you want to get the seed from your own plant, just make sure you get the best seed. Ok, now to get the best seed you must follow the criteria described as follows:

• Seed comes from ripe/mature fruit. It is of course vital point, the ripe fruit is marked with its color that turn to yellow. As comparison, young fruit have the color of green and then turn to yellow as it ripe and turn to brown and dried.
• Seed's shape is oval with black/dark/dark brown in color.
• Other criteria are the color of the kernel, it is white brownish and you also need to consider about the crack of the shell. It must not over 10%.

ok, for better understanding, not just theory, here's the picture of the fruit in its three stage of ripening :)

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Next on Bioenergy: seedling from seed

Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 1)

Ok, we have talked about growth requirements, population per hectare and even dimension of the hole to plant, now I will talk about the seedling. Actually there are several ways to get the seedling, the easiest is by buying it :) for anyone who want to produce it by themselves here's I got some info ;) Seedling can be produced by plants cutting, growing seed, or by tissue culture.

The first candidate, cutting. Plant cutting, also known as striking/cloning, is a technique for vegetatively (asexually) propagating plants in which a piece of the source plant containing at least one stem cell is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil, potting mix, coir or rock wool. The cutting produces new roots, stems, or both, and thus becomes a new plant independent of the parent (wikipedia). That the general picture is described, then here's the visual part of Jatropha's cutting.

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Picture above shows the cuttings in polybag. It just been cut so there's no leaf yet but you can see clearly it's cutting. For the growing part of cutting which already have leaves is as follows:

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Jatropha Plantation (Population)

After talked about Jatropha's growth requirements, I'd like to continue about its population in an area. Jatropha uses various spacing but the common spacing is 2m x 2m and it will have 2,500 trees per hectare. Some of Jatropha's plantation spacing are:

1. 3 m x 3 m (1,100 plants/ha)
2. 2 m x 3 m (1,600 plants/ha)
3. 2 m x 2 m (2,500 plants/ha)
4. 1.5 m x 2.0 m (3,300 plants/ha)

While in tilted area, terrace or contour system the common spacing that being used is 1.5 m x 1.5 m

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After spacing is determined then its time to make holes for planting (Without holes we'll have difficulties in planting those trees :p). Common dimension for the hole is 40 cm x 40 cm x 40 cm. As usual, you can see the picture below :)

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Ok, that's it for now. I'll cover about seedlings in the next post :)

Jatropha Plantation (Growth Requirements)

Jatropha is a though plant. It can grow in nearly all type of land, from lowland to midland (highland) and from arid/semi arid/arid land. But of course to grow as we expect it need its own best environment. Some of Jatropha growth requirements is as follows:

• Jatropha can grow from 0 up to 1,000 m above sea level. It can grow above 1,000 m but it will have less fruits and more leaves.
• Jatropha can grow at 300-2,380 mm/year of rainfall but the optimum rainfall is 625 mm/year.
• Jatropha can grow in almost all type of land including infertile soil but for optimum yield of course fertile soil is needed.
• Required temperature for Jatropha is about 20-28 °C while the required acidity of soil is between 5-6.6
• Jatropha can't grow (almost can't grow) in peat moss land

Here's I have picture that shows Jatropha grow on ex-mining area at PT. Indocement. From this picture I hope that you can imagine how though is Jatropha :)

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OOT

Sorry for posting an out of topic subject.

I just very glad and relief that my wife have given birth to my son and both of them are okay. In that period I'm not posting anything in this blog.
My son is quite big campared to the standard weight of baby in my country :) Average weight is about 2.8 kg but my baby's weight is 3.8 kg with 51 cm in length, my wife have to give all of her power until she is exhausted. When our baby born and I know that he and my wife are okay I just can't hold my tears anymore...