Major share of characters-Assam or China type can be distinguished by the following

characters.

Assam China

1. It is a tree It is a shrub

2. Few robust branches. Branches abundant and whippy.

3. Large, glossy leaves. Small leathery leaves.

4. Light to medium green Dark green colour. tree

5. High yield and medium quality. Low yield but good quality.

6. Susceptible to drought and frost. Hardy and resistant.

7. Sparse flowering. Profuse flowering.

shrub
 Propagation

Tea can be propagated by seed and by cuttings.

Seed propagation is seldom practiced now.

Seeds collected from the fruits are soaked in

water and only heavy seeds which sink are alone used
for sowing in beds.

Germination occurs in 20 to 30 days.

At that stage they are carefully lifted and

transplanted in polythene sleeves.

They will be ready for planting in 9 months.

 Vegetative
propagation
The site for the nursery can be selected in a flat land or gentle slope, near to a
perennial water source and easily accessible by road.

It should have a good drainage and should be protected from wind, frost and wild
animals etc.

Approximately, 0.15 ha nursery area is required to produce 1.25 lakhs cuttings.

Nursery area is to be provided with overhead shade by erecting concrete or stone

pillars at a spacing of 3 × 3 m and spread with 6 mm 2 mesh double strand coir mat
which provides about 67 percent shade.
 The cuttings for rooting are collected from mother
bushes winch are well maintained near the nursery area.

Such mother bushes are pruned well in advance to

induce juvenile shoots.

These juvenile shoots are collected in the morning

hours and 3 cm long cutting each with a healthy mother
leaf and an active axillary bud is prepared.

Cuttings from top tender and bottom brown wood

should be avoided.

Single node
 These cuttings are planted in polythene sleeves (30 cm
× 10 cm × 150 gauge), filled with growing medium (Jungle soil: river
sand 3: 1) in the bottom and rooting medium (Red/sub soil: sand: 1:1)
in the top 8-10 cm.

The soil used for rooting media should have an optimum pH

range of 4.8 to 5.0, if high, i.e. 5.1 to 5.5 or 5.6 to 6.0, it must be
drenched with 1 or 2% aluminium sulphate solution respectively @ 1
litre per cubic foot of soil.

This treatment should follow with drenching of twice the

volume of plain water to wash excess aluminium sulphate.

The cuttings are carefully planted at the centre of the sleeves in

such a way that the petiole should not touch the soil and then they are
watered.

These sleeves are then covered with polythene sheets over the
G.I. wire arches and the sides are tugged well to preserve moisture
content.

Callusing starts in 4-6 weeks and rooting occurs in 10 to 12

weeks.

When 80 percent of the cuttings have rooted, the tents are

opened in stages and the overhead shade is gradually reduced to Polythene Tent with Tea Seedllings

harden the plants.

 Grafting

Recently cleft grafting of single nodal cuttings of two varieties in the nursery
and callusing them in the nursery to develop a composite plant has been followed
to take advantage of drought tolerant clones as stocks and high yielding and
quality clones as scions.
 Training and Pruning
Training young tea

In the young tea, when it has

Centering
established well, centering i.e., removing the
growing point leaving 8 to 10 mature leaves
from the bottom, is done to induce
secondaries.

When the secondaries reach more than

60 cm, they are tipped at 50-55 cm height by
removing 3 to 4 leaves and bud to induce
tertiaries. Tipped

Therefore, plucking at mother leaf stage

is continued for better frame development.

 It takes nearly 18 to 20 months from

planting to reach regular plucking field stage.
 Pruning

Pruning is done in tea

1.To maintain the convenient height for plucking

2.To induce more vegetative growth

3.To remove dead and defunct wood

4.To remove the knots and interlaced branches

Pruning is normally done 4 to 6 years interval depending upon the altitude of the
garden, nature of the tea materials etc. The bushes marked for pruning should have
adequate starch reserves in roots otherwise the sprouting following pruning will be less.
 Pre-requisites for
pruning
Pruning can be done on the basis of starch reserves present in the roots.

For qualitative testing starch reserve in the plant roots, Iodine Test is performed.

Iodine solution is prepared by dissolving 1 gram each of iodine and potassium iodide in
distilled water taken in a beaker with constant shaking and making final volume 100 ml with distilled
water.

Alternatively, tincture of iodine diluted with hot water in the proportion of 1:8 can be used.

When iodine solution is applied to the cut ends of pencil thick roots, it turns blue.

Strength of the blue colour indicates the quantity of starch content in the roots eg.

Development of dark blue colour means adequate starch, light blue shows medium content,
whereas yellow represents very low or no starch content in the roots. If low, rest the bushes for 2
months prior to pruning.
The different types of pruning are as follows:-
Type of Pruning Season Remarks
pruning
height
(cm)

1. Rejuvenation April-
20- Done in old bushes affected with
pruning May
ChinaJat canker and wood rot to invigorate
30-Assam the new healthy branches. Not
Jat done regularly.

2. Hard pruning 30- Apr. - First formative pruning done to a

45 May young tea.

3. Medium pruning 45- Aug. - Normal pruning where-ever

60 Sept. frames are healthy.

4. Light pruning 60- Aug. - Normal pruning where-ever frames are

65 Sept. healthy.

5. Skiffing 65 Aug. - Mainly to postpone pruning and

Sept. to encourage better frame
development.
 The buds from the pruned shoots grow in a steady succession without any cessation of growth.
These are known as a periodic shoots or primary shoots.

These primary shoots should be induced to produce flush shoots, otherwise known as periodic
shoots by regular tipping operation.

Tipping is the removal of terminal portion of the shoot and it varies with jats and pruning height as
given below.

Tipping height refers to the number of leaves that must be left above the pruned cut while tipping
in material refers to that portion of the terminal shoot which must be tipped off.

Aperiodic Periodic Shoot

 Pruning height(cm) Tipping height (cm) Tipping in material

China Assam/ China Assam/ China Hybrid Assam/ Assam Hybrid

Hybrid Assam Hybrid Assam
Hybrid Hybrid

35-45 35-55 5 4 3 leaves and a bud 4 leaves and a bud

45-55 55-60 4 3 4 leaves and a bud 4 leaves and a bud

55 - 75 60-75 2 2 4 leaves and a bud 4 leaves and a bud

_ >75 1 4 leaves and a bud

 Manufacturing of tea
Basically, there are two types of processing viz.,

1. Orthodox method in which the rolling operation is done in a series of rollers.

The rollers have rotary tables with battens, jacket for loading the leaf and a pressure
cup.

2. CTC method (cutting, tearing and curling) which has a CTC machine, consisting
of series of a pair of rollers mounted in such a way they rotate in opposite directions
and the clearance between them is so adjusted to crush and tear the leaves. Irrespective
of the method, manufacturing of tea involves the following steps:

Orthodox method CTC method

 Withering

 The objective of withering is to reduce the moisture content of

leaves by spreading them in troughs which receive artificial air from
fan fitted on one end.

 At the end of withering, the leaves attain a flaccid condition for

which it may take 12 to 18 hours depending upon the weather
condition.

Rolling

 This operation is carried on by a series of machines or in a single

roller, during which the cells in the leaves are broken to liberate the sap
containing the polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme, which in the presence
of oxygen, oxidises the polyphenols to produce theaflavins and
thearubigens.

These are responsible for colouring of the tea and are a prerequisite
for next process viz., fermentation.

Rolling takes place for 30-40 minutes.

Afterwards, the fine sifted rolled ones are sent for fermentation
while the coarse ones are again sent for rolling.
 Fermentation

 Rolled tea materials are either spread in concrete floors or kept in

aluminium trays.

In the presence of high humidity and proper temperature, the

properly fermented tea will take golden red colour.

This step decides the quality i.e., Strength, colour and briskness of
tea.

Fermentation requires one hour or 2 hours depending upon the

environmental conditions.
Drying

 This step aims at stopping the fermentation process and slowly

removing the moisture content without a burnt smell but preserving
the inherent quality.

This is achieved by passing the fermented tea in thin layers

through conveyors into a drier in which the inlet temperature is
maintained around 250-280°F and outlet temperature is a round 150-
200°F.

Proper drying takes 30-40 minutes.

 Grading

 Before grading, the dried tea is removed of the stalky fibres, which affect the quality,
by passing through fibre separator machines.

The bulk tea is passed through different sized meshes which aid in separation into
different grades.
Grades in Tea
Orthodox grades Mesh size CTC Grades Mesh size

1. Pekoe >8 mesh sieve Flowery Pekoe (FP) > 8 mesh

2. Tippy golden Orange pekoe 8-12 Pekoe 8-10

(TGOP)

3. Broken orange pekoe (BOP) 12-16 BOP 10-12

4. BOP-Fannings 16-18 Pekoe Fannings 12-16
5. BOP-dust 18-24 BOP-fannings 16-20
6. Dust-I 25-30 Pekoe dust (PD) 20-30
7. Dust- II Below 30 Red Dust (RD) 30-40
8. Super Reddust (SRD) 40-50

9. Finel dust(PD) 50-60

10. Superfine dust (SD) below 60
 Pest and Diseases of Tea:

S.No Pest Name Control

Measures

1) Tea mosquito bug Spray phosalone or monocrotophos 2ml / litre of

water.
2) Shot hole borer Remove and destroy affected twigs

3) Thrips Spray dimethoate 30 EC or chlorpyriphos 20 EC @

2 ml/litre. Tea mosquito bug
4) Aphid One or two rounds of dimethoate 30 EC 2 ml/litre

5) Tea Mites Spray dicofol 18 EC @ 2 ml/litre or sulphur 80 WP

2g/litre using hand operated sprayer.

6) Tea leaf folder Spray chlorpyriphos @ 2 ml/litre

Shot hole borer

Thrips Aphid Tea Mites Tea leaf folder

S.No Disease Name Control
Measures

1) Blister blight Spray Chlorothalonil , Tridemorph , Mancozeb @ 0.2 %.

2) Thread blight Lime sulphur (Quick lime 22.5kg+ sulphur 45kg+ water 22.5l) may
be sprayed.

Blister blight
3) Red rust Spraying of burgundy mixture controls the disease

4) Brown root rot Soil fumigation is done with Vapam and Metham. Spray Bordeaux

mixture 0.1%.

5) Grey blight Pruning and burning the infested parts.

6) Sooty mould Spray fish oil-rosin soap (2 per cent) for the management of scale
insects

Thread blight

Red rust Brown root rot Grey blight Sooty mould