Hi all friends..
How are you today? in my first post on this community, I want to show some stories that I got on my visit to one of the provinces in Indonesia, namely the province of Riau, Indonesia is one of the largest archipelagic countries in the world, with a tropical climate that makes several types of plants fertile, in this country.
One of the plants that is a source of foreign exchange for the country and is widely exported abroad is the raw material for paper from the acacia and eucalyptus tree species developed in the province of Riau.
With an area of 107,932.71 km2 which stretches from the slopes of Bukit Barisan to the Malacca Strait, Riau Province is on a very strategic route because it is located on regional and international trade routes in the ASEAN region.
On this occasion I had the opportunity to visit the area where eucalyptus trees are planted and nursed with a friend of mine who works for this company.
According to my friend, there are more than 600 species of eucalyptus trees as raw material for pulp, among hundreds of types of eucalyptus, only a few are taken for planting and used as raw material for paper.
And here in addition to planting eucalyptus as raw material for pulp, his party also cultivates the seeds, for the benefit of the company itself, namely for replanting after harvest.
One of the nurseries with the highest number produced is in Pangkalan Kuras district, no half-hearted as much as 1,200 million eucalyptus seeds are produced from here every month, the seeds produced here are not only for planting purposes in Riau, but also sent to the island of Kalimantan,to meet the needs there.
Eucalyptus itself has good potential in Indonesia because it is suitable to be developed in the tropics. In Indonesia, the stems of this plant are generally used as raw material for paper pulp, this is because paper is generally made from wood with high fiber content and low water content, and one of the characteristics of this wood is found in eucalyptus wood.
In the process of planting this eucalyptus tree, routine maintenance is a priority, from testing soil pH levels, fertilizing and spraying pests that can interfere with eucalyptus growth, this maintenance process will be carried out for approximately three years, on average this eucalyptus tree will be harvested when it reaches five years old.
Those are some pictures and stories from my visit to Riau province, which is one of the largest producers of paper raw materials in the world.