Mushroom farming is a lucrative business in a tropical area such as Indonesia. It requires a small amount and investment to start growing Jamur Tiram (Oyster mushrooms), and it can be done step by step. The most difficult step is to create a baglog (an inoculated medium) where the mushrooms can grow. Recently, some farmers complained about the high rate of failure in their farm team’s attempts. One of those troubled groups is the farm team in Gamol, Balecatur village of Gamping, Sleman Regency.
The Gamol farm team’s medium contamination rate is 50%, which means their productivity is effectively halved. the reason for this is the ineffective use of their pasteurization equipment, resulting in a defective medium for the oyster mushrooms. The team’s pasteurization room was not airtight enough and had a traditional wooden stove. They are forced to use inferior methods because standard pasteurization equipment is very expensive and is unaffordable by farm teams.
To solve that problem, four students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) Under the guidance of Oki Wijaya S.P M.P, an agribusiness lecturer of UMY under the banner of Team of Applied Student Creativity Program (PKM-T) invented an affordable but effective pasteurization tool. Those four students are Afrio Darmawan (Agribusiness), M. Nabil Dhiyaulhaq Dzikrulloh (Mechanical Engineering), Maki Lukmanul Hakim (Agrotechnology) and Marbudi (Agribusiness). They named the tool “Bangker Pintar” (Smart Bunker). The Smart Bunker is a pasteurization tool in the form of a 1.2 meter cylinder made of 4mm thick iron.
“Bangker Pintar was created to be a functional and affordable pasteurization tool that could increase productivity and profit for the Gamol mushroom farm team. We hope that this tool can be perfected in the future and used by other farmers that still use traditional tools,” Nabil stated when interviewed by a team from UMY’s Office of Human Resources and Protocol on Wednesday (14/08).
The Bangker Pintar took three weeks to create. The tool was officially gifted to the Gamol mushroom farm team on Tuesday, June 18th 2019. Using the Bangker Pintar, the cost of pasteurization can be cut from 300 thousand rupiah to 146 thousand. In addition, the amount harvested also increased from 160 kg to 332.5 kg, which quadrupled production income from Rp. 607.500 per harvest season to 2.695.000 per harvest season.
Suparman, the head of Gamol mushroom farm team was overjoyed because the tool lowered the cost of pasteurization and the risk of failure, which increased the team’s profit. (ads)
