Key Techniques for Tea Plant Cultivation and Planting Management Methods
By making use of the characteristics and requirements of tea plant growth and development, selecting superior varieties and suitable land, and carrying out scientific planting and management, these are the technical measures used to obtain high-yield, high-quality commercial beverage tea.
Under suitable climate and soil conditions, the technical scope of cultivation mainly covers planting, post-planting management and harvesting. For variety selection, it is advisable to choose tea types suited to the local climate, with high yield per unit area, excellent quality and strong resistance. Propagation can be done by raising seeds in a nursery and then transplanting, or by direct seeding of seeds in the tea garden. Vegetative cutting propagation is mostly used.
Management of young tea gardens includes care of seedlings after planting to ensure robust growth, prevention of soil erosion, mulching with straw, intercropping green manure between rows to increase soil fertility, promotion of branching, and formative pruning. Management of mature tea plants includes fertilisation, irrigation, pruning, pest and disease control, and picking.
Indicators of good management are: relatively pure stands with no missing plants or clumps, vigorous plant growth, broad canopy coverage, distinct branching tiers, thick leaf layers, deep and loose soil, little soil erosion between rows, and soil pH between 4 and 6 within a depth of one metre.
The key to high yield and quality in tea plants lies in canopy training. When the growth branches on the surface layer of the canopy are dense, broad and strong, the buds and leaves produced are more numerous, plump and tender. For every 0.333 sq m there should be 300 to 400 growth branches, and the pickable buds and leaves can reach 400 to 500. As for the standards for canopy height and width, in the past the height was required to be 80 to 90 cm and the width 90 to 100 cm; now, for single-row close planting with a row spacing of 145 to 150 cm, the required canopy surface width is 100 to 120 cm and the height is 60 to 80 cm, with the ratio of canopy height to width being about 1:2. The leaf layer on the picking surface of the canopy should be kept 15 to 20 cm thick, and the picking surface should form a slightly arched shape.