Influence of one and two node cuttings on rapid vegetatively propagated infilling tea (camellia sinesis) plants
Loading...
Date
2014
Authors
Mwangi, Simon Mwai
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The tea industry in Kenya is rural-based and provides a livelihood to over three
million people. Tea is grown in prime agricultural land and can be potentially
productive for 100 years if well managed. Peak yields under optimal
management are obtained at 20–40 years after planting only if gaps that arise
due to factors such as lightening, pests, diseases, unfavorable climatic
conditions and incorrect pruning are taken care of through an elaborate infilling
program and use of appropriate infilling plants. Infilling in tea farms is however
faced with a challenge of lack of suitable infilling plants since commonly used
single node cuttings take very long in the nursery and is less robust to compete
with established ones. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the
suitability of vegetatively propagated (VP) tea plants raised from two nodes as
opposed to single node cuttings as infilling plants. The study was conducted at
tea nurseries of KTDA Kangaita and Kagochi farms in Kirinyaga and Nyeri
Counties, respectively. The treatments were two types of cuttings namely single
node cutting (SNC) and two node cutting (TNC) from three tea clones (TRFK
31/8, TRFK 6/8 and AHP S15/10). The experimental design was CRD with split
arrangements where main plot was the node cutting (2) and subplot was
constituted by three clones. The treatment comprised a set of 200 cuttings and
was replicated thrice in the two different sites. The parameters measured were
survival count, ability to produce two shoots, number of new leaves and size,
root and shoot length, and root biomass. All data collected were subjected to
analysis of variance (p≤0.05) and where significant differences among
treatments were found the means were separated using Least Significant
Difference (LSD). The SAS statistical package was employed in all analyses.
Results revealed that TNC had superior performance in most parameters
measured compared to SNC with clone TRFK 31/8 showing better performance
in more parameters than other clones apart from the ability to produce two
shoots from TNC. The results showed that apical dominance in tea is not
absolute and therefore a good number of cuttings grown as two node cutting
(TNC) were capable of producing two shoots, a characteristic desirable for an
infilling plant. The outcome of the study shows that tea farm productivity can
be increased through faster development of healthy and robust infilling plants
using TNC than through the conventional method employing SNC. It is
therefore recommended that tea growers requiring faster infilling plants can use
TNC in the tea nurseries. A further research to explore suitability of cuttings
with more than two nodes needs to be undertaken.
Description
MST-Department of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, 79p. October, 2014.