The Agricultural Training, Research and Development Station of Universitas Gadjah Mada (KP4 UGM) is one of the supporting units of the University which provides services to UGM’s academic community and the society outside UGM. Services include active role in efforts to create sustainable management of agriculture in Indonesia in terms of food resilience and security, food self-sufficiency and sovereignty, productivity improvement, increase in farmer’s income, biological diversity and environmental quality, through the concept of integrated farm-based agribusiness development which is based on organic materials management with 7R (recycle, reduce, reuse, refill, replace, replant and repair).
KP4 UGM is currently conducting research activities suitable for publication, patent and business. Through RUSNAS’ research and Agro-Cluster, KP4 UGM conducts 10 integrated and leading researches. Their titles are Gama Rice (dry resistant rice cultivar invention), Gama Maize (development of superior local corn), Gama Melon (development of new cantaloupe variety “Melody Gama Basket"), Gama Rosella Tea (rosella tea development and production), Gama Cow (genetic improvement of Bali cow as cattle and national germplasms with the application of biotechnology feed and reproduction), Gama Chicken (performance improvement of local chickens through genetic resource invention), Gama Soya (the development of synthetic meat and healthy tofu), Gama Orchid (invention and clonally multiplication of superior cultivars of Phalaenopsis-Vanda- Dendrobium orchids), Gama Carbon (carbon absorption improvement in rainfed planting pattern), and Gama bio-digester (biogas purification by using zeolite for tube packaging).
One of the ten researches ready for release is 'Gama Chicken'. According to drh. Hendry T.S.S.G. Saragih, M.P., the objective of 'Gama Chicken' research is to get the phenotypic characters (F1), i.e., feather color and weight as well as area and the number of mio-fiber of Pectoralis thoracicus muscles in chicken (F1) the crossbreeding between Pelung chicken with Parent Stock Broiler Strains Cobb-500 chicken as identification means of potential local broiler chickens.
'Gama Chicken' has several strengths such as the very significant body increase. A seven week old local chicken weighs about 500 grams while the crossbred chicken weighs 1100 gr. The Gama Chickens are marketable in 7 weeks while local chickens about 3-4 months of age. In the future, the results of these crossbred chickens will be evaluated so the gained parent can produce a new strain of Indonesian local chicken.