INDONESIAN KONJAC: ITS BENEFITS IN INDUSTRY AND FOOD SECURITY

IK (Amorphophallus muelleri) or IK in brief for short is one of Monocotyledonous plants that have been introduced and cultivated by Indonesian people since many years ago. This plant is of Araceae family with the genus name of Amorphophallus. The bulb of IK contains glucomannan powder and is very valuable for food drink pharmacy cosmetics paper rubber textile film mine microbiology and adhesives industries. Cultivation of this plant is easy. IK has the best growth if cultivated under 50 to 60 percent sunlight with the soil acidity of 6 to 7.5 in sandy loose and compost soil lowland to upland (1000 meters above sea level) rainfall of 1000 to 1500 millimeters every year and air temperature of 26 to 30 Celcius degrees. IK has several local names such as porang (Java) kruwu lorkong labing subeg leres subeg bali (Madura Island) acung cocoan oray (Sunda) and badur (West Nusa Tenggara).