This was expressed at the meeting hosted by BALITTRO held on 30th January 2015 at Bogor. The meeting which was presided by Dr. Agus Wahyudi, Head of Balittro and was attended among others by Executive Director of IPC, Sr. Scientists from BALITRO, officials from IPC Liaison Office of Indonesia and Directorate of Spices and Seasonal Crops discussed mainly on the potential of introducing the Pepper intercropped with Tea. The meeting was held as a follow up to the discussion had during the Indonesia Spice Seminar held in Bandung, West Java in the month of November 2014.
Dr. Rohayati, Head of R&D, Center for Tea & Cinchona Research Institute said during the meeting that her team at the institute is very interested in developing a model of intercropping Tea with Pepper at one of the selected Tea Plantation located in Sukabumi, which is considered to be suitable for intercropping with pepper considering of its location and characteristic of the soil. She further informed that with the current low price of Tea, the area under tea plantation has declined due to farmers are switching to other crops. She added that once a planned model of intercropping Tea with pepper can be undertaken and successful, this exercise may be introduced and expanded to other suitable tea plantations.
She further requested that BALITTRO and IPC could extend their support and expertise in term of the guidelines, technology, suitable planting materials etc.
Meanwhile Dr. Agus Wahyudi, Head of BALITTRO and Mr. Gunaratne, ED of IPC have assured the support from both Balittro and IPC to the Tea Research Institute in undertaking and initiating the works for developing the model of intercropping in Sukabumi.
