TEA PLANTS NURSERY

The Tea Plants Nursery is an integral part of any Tea
garden.In the early days, selected seeds were directly
placed in holes,

but later nurseries was established for the specific purpose of nurturing and transplanting stronger plants in the holes.

 

 In subsequent years, the planters introduced a new method known as Vegetative Propagation (VP), with the expert advice of the Tea Research Institute.

The tea is grown from leaf cuttings taken from selected mother buses of high yielding and disease resistant strain. This method became very successful and numerous ‘Clonal’ VP plants were introduced during replanting/new planting of tea fields.

Clonal propagation has the potential to produce flush freely and have a natural resistance against disease.

Pics – Tea Nursery at Stonycliff. Note different stages of plants in nursery. The Tea Nursery is also used to propagate Shade Tree plants.

Carefully selected, high yielding ‘Mother Bushes’ are nurtured and grown separately for taking VP cuttings.

Nurseries must be prepared well in advance before cuttings are taken from selected mother bushes.

During the very early stages they must have sufficient supply of water and acidic soil rich in humus.