Tea Plant Winter Management Methods and Technical Key Points
How to manage tea plants in winter? Please advise. To make productive tea gardens sprout early and abundantly the following year, with strong, uniform buds, high yield, excellent quality free of pollution, and to sell at a good price when reaching the market early, strengthening winter management is key. As winter arrives, tea plants gradually stop growing and enter dormancy. At this time, the tea garden should carry out tea plant pruning, applying sufficient base fertilizer, pest and disease prevention...
How to manage tea plants in winter? Please advise.
To make productive tea gardens sprout early and abundantly the following year, with strong, uniform buds, high yield, excellent quality free of pollution, and to sell at a good price when reaching the market early, strengthening winter management is key. As winter arrives, tea plants gradually stop growing and enter dormancy. At this time, the tea garden should carry out three management tasks: tea plant pruning, applying sufficient base fertilizer, and pest and disease control, so that increased income the following year is guaranteed.
1. Tea plant pruning: Pruning can be done from October of the previous year to February of the following year. The method is to cut off the uneven branches and leaves at the top of the tea plant, making the canopy surface flat and forming a horizontal or arc shape. Generally, the length of pruned branches and tips is 5-15 cm; for some chicken-claw branches, diseased and pest-damaged branches, and thin and weak branches, deep pruning should be carried out; for tea gardens with many chicken-claw branches, aged tea plants, thin and uneven tea buds, low yield, and poor benefits, heavy pruning and collar pruning should be carried out to cut off old branches, leaving a stump height of about 20 cm. This is conducive to regeneration and sprouting, and robust new shoots; for tea gardens with inferior varieties, low yield, and poor benefits, old plants should be dug out and improved varieties of tea seedlings with excellent quality and higher yield, such as Fuxuan No. 9, Baihao 131, and Zaobaijian, should be purchased and planted.
2. Applying sufficient base fertilizer: To ensure the excellent quality of tea buds, farmyard organic fertilizer complete in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium should be selected. Prepare 200 kg of livestock and poultry manure per mu, add 50 kg of oil cake and 50 kg of calcium-magnesium phosphate fertilizer, mix well, ferment, and then use. Before fertilizing, first carry out a round of tillage in the tea garden, with a digging depth of 10-20 cm, preferably without damaging the tea roots, then open furrows along the drip line at the edge of the tea canopy for deep application, and cover with soil immediately.
3. Pest and disease control: For diseased plants affected by tea blister blight, tea sooty mold, banded sclerotial blight, and other diseases, dig them out by the roots and burn them promptly; conduct a round of inspection of old leaves and branches of tea plants, and promptly remove branches and leaves with insect eggs, insect nests, and insect cocoons, and burn them in a centralized manner. After clearing the garden, spray once with lime sulfur mixture.
The use of highly toxic and high-residue pesticides is prohibited in tea gardens. Biological pesticides permitted by the state for use on tea should be applied scientifically, and the safety interval period must be strictly observed to ensure that the tea produced is free of pollution, so as to meet the needs of domestic and international tea markets and obtain higher economic benefits.
Click to get more tea cultivation techniques
Click to get more flower cultivation techniques