Assessing compost-biochar synergy for boosting carbon sequestration and local katokkon chili agronomic performance for promoting low-emission, climate-adapted farming systems

Abstract

The Katokkon chili, an important Toraja cash crop, is increasingly threatened by climate change, necessitating climate-resilient soil management strategies.This study assessed the synergy of biochar and compost in enhancing soil carbon sequestration and improving katokkon chili performance within low-emission farming systems.A farmer-led field experiment was conducted in Ullin Rembon Village in 2024 involving 12 farmers cultivating 150 m plots.A split-plot design was applied, with two genotypes -L1 (Limbong) and L2 (Leatung), as main plots and six compost-biochar ratios (R0-R5) as subplots, replicated four times.The L1R4 treatment (20% compost + 80% biochar) resulted in the highest improvement in plant performance, producing 2.511 g plant, a 54.60% increase over L1R0.Soil carbon stock increased across treatments compared to the initial value of 33.82 ton ha.The highest carbon stock was recorded under R5 (100% biochar) at 51.93 ton ha, followed closely by R4 (20% compost + 80% biochar) at 51.06 ton ha, reflecting substantial carbon accumulation consistent with the graph.These results, supported by an R of 0.791 explaining 79.1% of yield variability, confirm that compost-biochar synergy effectively enhances soil carbon storage, improves plant growth, and strengthens the climate resilience of katokkon chili production systems.

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