InfoSAWIT, PEKANBARU – PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) V, the subsidiary of Holding Perkebunan Nusantara III Persero, successfully got a breakthrough in palm oil industries. The innovation is called Natural Enemies Breeding House (NB House). It successfully keeps palm oil plantations producing good and escalates the productivity efficiently and efficiently.
One main challenge in palm oil plantation industries is the attack of caterpillars that eat palm oil leaves. This kind of pest threatens to escalate plantation productivity. To solve it, PTPN V decided to depend on natural predator, Sycanus sp., to reduce such caterpillars. But to confirm the approach successfully, the company developed NB House as the center of breeding the natural enemies.
Senior Executive Vice President Operation PTPN V, Ospin Sembiring said that the innovation has been made in many subsidiaries of PTPN Group. The simple approach delivered positive impacts in the company’s palm oil plantation productivity. By breeding natural enemies, and releasing predators for such caterpillar, the pest population could be reduced effectively and eventually it reduces pest attacks and chemical materials use to be environmental.
“This was simple idea but there would be incredible impacts. This is called innovation that delivers the positivity effectively and efficiency,” Sembiring said, as InfoSAWIT quoted from the official page of PTPN V, Friday (10/11/2023).
He also mentioned, the breeding of Sycanus was in three phases, they are, laying egg, nymph, and imago. Only in imago, Sycanus would be an effective predator to reduce pest attacks in the field. As the research result by the innovator team - Nava Karina, Ricardo Panjaitan, and Andra Sumarno showed, the approach escalated the population of Sycanus maximally.
Nava Karina emphasized, the research about NB House spent one year and enabled the team to arrange the right formula. It means, PTPN V successfully created a system which efficient not only to control the pests but be environmental.
“Our research showed that breeding natural enemies and releasing predator insects could reduce pest population in the plantations and it is environmental,” Nava said. (T2)
