MUKAH: Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Sentosa, Sibu, Sarawak was selected to be the location for the fertigation programme to undergo a course organised by the Advanced Training and Education Unit (ULPL), Mukah Polytechnic (PMU) recently.
This school was chosen as a pilot school for the fertigation programme which is one of the Lifelong Learning (LPH) programmes.
For that reason, the school chose terung asam (edible aubergines or purple egg-shaped fruit of a tropical plant) planted by fertigation considering the high demand for it by the local market and implemented from February 2022 until now.
Fertigation is done in a systematic and automatic irrigation process using the latest IoT technology and it does not require difficult care compared to traditional cultivation.
Fertigation planting of this sour eggplant was made possible by Mohammad Fadzli Jawawi who is the head of Civil Engineering Department, PMU as the main teaching staff and assisted by the head of Training and Advanced Education Unit, Roziah Zainal Abidin as the programme facilitator.
According to Roziah, this programme was started at the school’s own request, since PMU has specialised teaching staff in this field, so this programme is organised together to provide productive results.
Roziah also informed that originally this programme wanted to start with 200 plants, but due to the constraints of the area of the site, the number was reduced to only 100.
The school itself led by the headmistress, Admah binti Mohamed Jamli, agreed to implement this programme at the request of the teachers and staff of the school.
Since most of the staff members of this school are interested in learning the techniques of this fertigation plant, this request was submitted to the PMU.
After several discussions regarding equipment, financial allocation and also some other aspects including the monitoring of crops that need to be done, finally this programme was successfully realised this year.
According to Admah again, they can’t afford to wait for the results of this sour eggplant plant and intend to continue fertigation for other plants in the future.
Admah also informed that they are also interested in learning hydroponic plant techniques after this, if there are sufficient financial resources later.
In the beginning, this plant faced several obstacles, where the seedlings did not grow evenly and had needed replanting.
