How to Plant Tea Seedlings? A Detailed Guide to Cutting Propagation Techniques

Tea seedlings are the seedlings of the tea plant, meaning young plants. Below we introduce the cutting propagation techniques for tea seedlings.

I. Timing and Production Schedule:

(1) Preparation Period: late July—early September of the first year

1. Nursery site selection: choose farmland with an irrigation water source, good drainage, and where nursery stock has not been propagated in recent years. 2. Land preparation and bed making: the seedbed is 30cm high and 100cm wide, and the length depends on the plot, generally not exceeding 25m. 3. Laying yellow subsoil: before cutting, spread sand-free yellow subsoil on the seedbed to a thickness of 4cm. 4. Prepare shade netting 150cm wide, agricultural plastic film, and materials for building the shed.

(2) Cutting Period: mid-September—early October of the first year

1. Cutting selection: use healthy growing annual lignified branches of improved clonal tea varieties, and cut and insert them immediately. 2. Cutting: adopt single-leaf retention cuttings, with a cutting length of 8cm, a cutting depth of 3cm, and a cutting density of 450 plants/m2, that is, 180,000 plants/mu. While cutting, sprinkle water to keep the seedbed moist, and immediately build an “arch”-shaped shed and cover it with shade netting.

(3) Seedling Stage Management: mid-September of the first year—late March of the third year

1. First stage (mid-September—late November of the first year): mainly do well in sprinkling water to maintain seedbed humidity, spraying fungicides such as Topsin once every 5–7 days. 2. Second stage (early December of the first year—late March of the second year): cover the shade netting with agricultural plastic film as well, and do well in maintaining moisture and warmth in the seedbed. 3. Third stage (early April—late June of the second year): remove the agricultural film, continue to do well in maintaining moisture and sterilization of the seedbed, and from late May apply 0.15% urea as a foliar topdressing once every 10 days. 4. Fourth stage (early July—late September of the second year): mainly do well in maintaining seedbed moisture and resisting high temperatures, apply nitrogen fertilizer appropriately according to seedling growth, and remove the shade netting in due course according to the degree of lignification of the seedlings. 5. Fifth stage (early October of the second year—late March of the third year): this stage is the seedling out-planting period; according to the needs of afforestation units, promptly do well in lifting and out-planting the seedlings.

II. Technical Key Points:

1. Before cutting the seedlings, do well in disinfecting the nursery site; you may spray the seedbed with a 1000-fold dilution of 50% wettable Topsin powder to ensure the seedbed is free of pathogens before cutting. 2. When cutting the seedlings, soak the cuttings with ABT No. 1 rooting powder at 100ppm for 3–5 hours, which can shorten rooting time and increase the survival rate. 3. Water management during the seedling stage is the key to ensuring the survival of tea seedling cuttings; the humidity of the seedbed must be well controlled, as excessive moisture easily causes pathogen invasion, while excessive dryness is unfavorable for root development and affects the survival rate.