The Upasi (United Planters’ Association of Southern India) Tea Research Foundation is gearing up to address the issue of scarce planting material.
P. Mohan Kumar, Director, Upasi TRF told Business Line that the research foundation was gearing up to produce 50,000 plants of the TRF-4 variety by 2014.
“We need to develop more plantings of TRF 4 and TRF 5,” he said.
TRF 4, which was released in December 2011, is a high yielding variety with superior quality characters. It can be harvested with a mechanical harvester, he said, adding “we need to go for cent per cent mechanisation to tackle the issue of paucity of farm labour.”
“Mechanisation is the need of the hour, not only in the field but in the nursery as well. We have to be careful though, for the mechanical harvester can cut the leaf,” Mohan Kumar said. The Foundation has developed a foliar package for maintaining the health of the bushes, particularly for people using the harvester. “We are in the process of developing new machines after fine-tuning the technique,” he said.
The Research Foundation is collecting and conserving a large number of natural variants from the old seedling population.
To a query on replanting, he said: “There is dire need for replanting the old bushes with new ones, but there is no question of horizontal expansion. Tea gardens will have to look at replacing the existing old bushes with high yielding clones. Around 30 to 40 per cent of the existing bushes contribute to 75 per cent of the yield,” he said.
While stating that a couple of tea accessions with specific characteristics were in the pipeline and expected to be released for commercial utilisation in the near future, the UPASI TRF Director said that the thrust would be on various clones and various type of seedlings.
“There are measures like tissue culture, but it is rather expensive. Clones are grown in nursery, multiplied and released to planters,” he said.
Source: thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/agri-biz/upasi-tea-research-body-developing-plants-for-mechanical-harvest/article5142529.ece
Upasi tea research body developing plants for mechanical harvest
