UNS – Arifah Evianti, the student in 4th semester of Faculty of Agriculture D3 Agribusiness Horticulture represents Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta in the National Most Outstanding Student Election (Mawapres Program) on Diploma 3 category. The results of her research show 76% of the farmers in Kulon Progo Yogyakarta use the chemical fungicides that are harmful to plants and can cause pathogen resistance. Her finding leads her to be nominated as the candidates of Mawapres D-3 2018. She offered a solution on how to prevent the over-use chemical fungicides to plants. She introduces ‘CHILICA’ product which is the fungicide for chili plants.
Arifah Evianti, the representative of Universitas Sebelas Maret in the National Most Outstanding Student 2018
In the Mawapres Program 2018, the selected students must be able to answer the challenge of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 since Indonesia must achieve the sustainable agriculture. As a solution to solve the problems and to achieve sustainable of chemical fungicide use in agriculture, Arifah created a product called CHILICA that is a vegetable fungicide gel made from Mimosa pudica (also known as shame plant) root extract that is usually used to medicate anthracnose disease in Indonesian coastal sand area.
There are several processes that must be passed by Arifah to be nominated as the delegates of this event, such as the selection in the level of department, faculty and university level. She successfully completed Scientific Writing and an English interview. After completing those stages, she outperformed other candidates in the university level and that continued to become the candidates in the national level.
Arifah explained that there are two underlying reasons for making this product. First, the consumption of chili production increases from year to year and it is estimated that the consumption of chili increases to 2% in 2019. Therefore, she said that it is necessary to support chili cultivation. Chili plants have the great potential to be infested by anthracnose pests or diseases caused by the Colletotrichum fungi. This fungi cause patches and disrupt chili commodities and also decrease the productivity of chili peppers. Second, the number of land conversion or exploitation of 99,000 km Indonesian beach sands is considered to be very potential to increase chili productivity.
Arifah’s product has an active ingredient mimosa class of flavonoids that are anti-fungal and 90% shame plant root extract. According to the study, 90% of the concentration was able to inhibit anthracnose disease by 28%, the incidence of 0% disease, 0 mm diameter spotting and incubation for 12 days.
“The reason for carrying out this idea is in accordance with my study program. Then, one of the Agriculture visions is to achieve integrated and sustainable agriculture as well as innovation. So, based on this occasion, I try to support chili productivity in Indonesia,” Arifah explained.
The gel has several advantages such as high absorption power in plants as well as environmentally friendly because it is made of natural materials. humas-red.uns.ac.id/Tni/Dty