Study of Micro-climate of Pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in Several Agroforestry Systems

Abstract

One of Indonesia's centers of pepper plant yields is Lampung Province. But now the productivity of the pepper is drastically decreasing. Efforts to overcome this can be done by selecting the system components appropriately and by following the needs of the microclimate of the pepper plant to produce optimal productivity. Therefore this research aims to study the variation of microclimate from some types of agroforestry systems, analyze the relationship among microclimate, productivity and determine the most ideal type and evaluate the level of pepper productivity in various types of systems. The results showed that, the determinants of microclimate diversity of pepper agroforestry systems were canopy area, density, frequency, and kind of vegetation while the magnitude of sunlight transmission, temperature, and humidity in pepper agroforestry systems was influenced by vegetation characteristics. The form of the relationship formed by the transmission of sunlight and air temperature is positive linear, while the humidity of the air forms a negative linear relationship to the productivity of pepper plants in the agroforestry system tested while of the five types of agroforestry systems tested Type 5 is the most ideal pepper agroforestry system. Where the microclimatic conditions formed by type 5 can produce the highest pepper productivity among other system types.