Agronomic and Cultural Practices

Proper land selection, adoption of appropriate soil conservation measures and improvement of soil fertility through rehabilitation ensures better plant establishment and early canopy formation which eventually provides an early ground cover.


Planting tea

Planting tea in contour using healthy and vigorous plants of recommended clones with appropriate plant populations for different clones would ensure better establishment and uniform growth, which could provide a better ground cover.

Bush formation (Bringing into bearing)

Bush formation or bringing into bearing operation, which begins, from the nursery is extremely important to obtain a good canopy structure. Centering by cutting of well established plant followed by tipping at correct stage is of paramount importance in proper bush formation. Plucking-in is not recommended as it results in poor canopy formation.

Bush management (Plucking)

A good ground cover could also be achieved by maintaining bush health and vigour of the plants through out the pruning cycle. This is possible only by adopting proper plucking policies, with respect to standard, frequency and severity, which not only helps to maintain a good ground cover but also enhance productivity.

Pruning

Adoption of correct pruning practices with appropriate pre and post pruning operations ensures uniform recovery from pruning and provides an early ground cover. The prunings should be allowed to remain in the field, which improves soil fertility, and also act as mulch.


Shade and green manure crop management

High Shade stand of Gravillea robusta


Establishment of green manure crops and shade trees at recommended spacing intercept the incident light and reduce the impact of rainfall drops. Further, leaf litter and lopping of shade trees at regular intervals provides substantial amount of biomass, which not only act as mulch but also increases organic matter content which enhance soil fertility. Therefore, shade plays a multiple role in the ground cover management in tea plantations.


Pests and disease management

Adequate measures should be taken to control and manage any pest or disease attack, which may affect the canopy and healthy growth of tea.

In-filling of vacancies

The vacancies or gaps that occur as a result of casualties from times to time gets gradually expand causing soil erosion and heavy weed infestation. Therefore vacancies should be planted with soil rehabilitation grass(Mana grass - Cymbopogon confertiflorus or Gautemala grass - Tripsacum laxum) or establish a ground cover such as Arachis pintoii until such time they are infilled with recommended clones. Infilling of vacancies should be done at every pruning and all the weak plants, which are mere passengers, should be culled and infilled.

Ground covers


Ground covers play an important role in sustaining and improving fertility status of soil. Beneficial effects of ground covers are conservation of soil and moisture, reduction in soil erosion, improvement in soil fertility and suppression in weed growth. In general, there are two different types of ground covers which are presently adopted in tea cultivation;

Thatching – Application of surface mulch
Live mulch - Cover crops and soft weeds


Thatching or mulching

Inter raws in young tea mulched with grass



The importance of thatching or mulching in young tea is well known. It is one of the main components in the package of integrated weed management. In order to realize the full benefit of thatching, it is necessary to maintain the thatch layer until tea canopy provide and adequate ground cover. Therefore, it is necessary that the layer of thatch is re-laid well before the material completely breakdown. However, in practice re-thatching is hardly adopted due to non-availability and non-sustainability of material. Approximately forty tons of material is required to thatch one ha and this amount could obtain from one ha in a single lopping of Mana grass, which is sufficient only for the first thatching at planting. For subsequent thatching, materials will be a problem unless there is a thatch bank available in the estate.

Cover crops

Cover crop Arachis pintoii




The cover crops can play an important role in sustainable agriculture as it improves the soil aggregation, increase infiltration capacity and hence decrease the risk of runoff. In addition, cover crops also suppress weed growth.




Intercropping

Tea and Rubber













Tea & Coconut








In any intercropping system, the objective is to utilize the available area fully using the resources of production. Under such situation, the land utilization is very high and hence there is a less opportunity for land to remain exposed. Therefore, intercropping systems of tea and rubber, tea and coconut provides an efficient ground cover management option.




Tea and Coconut + Pepper









Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT)






SALT in tea steep tea land


SALT is a package technology on soil conservation and crop production. Investigations have shown that it could be used as an alternative measure for soil conservation and fertility management in tea lands. “Hedgerows” play a key role in SALT and these are lopped at regular intervals. The loppings can act as good surface mulch, which has a direct relevance to ground cover management. Therefore, in addition to other benefits, SALT also can play an important role in the ground cover management in sloping tea lands.