34.
INDOFOOD AGRI RESOURCES LTD
ANNUAL REPORT 2015
capabilities, and are among 11 recognised oil palm seed
producers in Indonesia with the certification and laboratories
for the production of high quality planting materials suited to
our local climates.
INDOAGRI’S ADVANCED R&D CENTRES
SumBio
•
Location: Bah Lias, North Sumatra
•
Production capacity: 25 million oil palm seeds
per annum
PT SAIN
•
Location: Pekanbaru, Riau
•
Production capacity: 8 million oil palm seeds
per annum
In the area of sustainable production, our efforts cover:
•
Soil and water conservation
, specifically the control of soil
erosion, cultivation of Legume Cover Crops to improve soil
fertility for newplantings, stabilisation of soil on steep slopes
and canal banks using Vetiver Systems, and measures to
ensure good drainage in low lying areas and to keep the
water table at its optimum height for plant growth.
•
Fertiliser management programmes
, which entail
a fully-integrated strategy to provide site-specific
formulations for individual plantation blocks based
on the yield target, annual foliar analysis, soil fertility,
fertiliser trials, and nutrient release from soil and
plant residue. A combination of organic and inorganic
fertilisers is used to ensure optimum palm nutrition.
•
Application of palm oil mill by-products
, where empty
fruit bunches (EFB) are recycled as soil mulch, and
palm oil mill effluent (POME) is used in land application.
These practices have cut our annual requirement for
inorganic fertilisers by 14%, while the co-composting
of EFB and POME potentially replaces up to 30% of
inorganic fertiliser use per year. We have been doing
this co-composting in four of our mills.
•
Integrated pest and disease management
, with
particular emphasis on the use of biological control
agents such as barn owls and entomopathogenic
microbes. With the effectiveness of our barn owl
programme, the use of rodenticides has been
discontinued in Riau since 2011. Each year, some
10,000 and 2,000 owlets are produced in our Riau and
South Sumatra estates, respectively.
•
Training and collaboration
, which involves deriving new
operational solutions through research methodologies,
regular inspection visits to the plantations to evaluate
field conditions and advise on current agronomy issues,
and to train estate personnel on the best practices for
crop protection and soil and crop management.
2015 REVIEW
In 2015, sales volume of the Group’s oil palm seeds
increased from 9.2 million to 10.4 million seeds. Each year,
about 200 seeds per hectare would be set aside for the
Division’s own planting activities, while the majority is sold
to external customers. For the year in review, oil palm new
plantings accounted for 1,641 hectares of estates, while
922 hectares were replanted.
In a move to grow our market share, two new high-yielding
varieties were launched in 2015. These new varieties
demonstrate the continuous improvement from our
advanced breeding programmes, leading to higher yielding
and disease tolerant varieties. To manage the risks posed
by counterfeit seed distributors, SumBio has a process to
Laboratory work at the R&D centre in North Sumatra
PLANTATION REVIEW
R&D
