VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Chili becomes an important commodity in Indonesian culture. Various traditional and modern culinary uses chili in the cooking. In fulfilling the need for chili, students of the Faculty of Engineering and Agriculture at Brawijaya University Malang, East Java created Agrowbot. Agrowbot is an environmentally friendly agricultural robot created by students in collaboration between 2 faculties. Candra Sabdana Nugroho, one of the students, explained that Agrowbot was created because the availability of red chili in Indonesia is still lacking while the needs are quite high. The lack of red chili production in Indonesia is caused by pest attacks or disease. Through this Agrowbot innovation, five students won the Silver Medal at the 2019 Bangkok International Intellectual Property, Invention, Innovation and Technology Exposition in Thailand Inventor's Day at the Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Center, Thailand, in early February. Candra explained that for the working system, the robot can generate electromagnetic fields on the soil which can trigger immunity or endurance of chili plants so that they are more resistant to disease and can trigger acceleration of photosynthesis. In addition, the robot can also monitor temperature, humidity and light intensity. Robots run automatically in agricultural areas and landowners can monitor them remotely for example via mobile phones. With Agrowbot, it is expected to be able to meet the consumption needs of red chili in Indonesia and become an environmentally friendly cultivation technique solution. According to the official statement from the Faculty of Engineering, Brawijaya University, Agrowbot can be used once week during the red chili planting period. To get optimal results can be used as many as 10 to 12 times during the planting period with exposure time of 90 minutes per use. If Agrowbot is applied on a small or large scale, it is expected to help reduce the use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides and increase crop yields.