Estimating the Shoot Dry Matter Production of Tea [Camelia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] of Cultivar TRI 2025

Three field experiments were conducted to study growth and dry matter production of shoots of tea cultivar TRI 2025. The study site was a smallholder tea farmer’s field at Hali Ela (South), 1178 m amsl. First experiment was carried out to study the changes in number of shoots in different growth stages (i.e. buds, bud with fish leaf, bud with one normal leaf, bud with two normal leaves, bud with three normal leaves and banjies) with time. Observations were taken for one year. In the second experiment, degree-days (thermal time) accumulated for producing different tea shoots in a plucking table of cultivar TRI 2025 were estimated. In the third experiment a mathematical model to predict the production of harvestable tea shoots was developed. There was a significant difference among the mean number of total shoots in the plucking table with time (i.e. month of a year) representing different growth stages (i.e. buds, bud with fish leaf, bud with one normal leaf, bud with two normal leaves, bud with three normal leaves). The highest number of total shoots was recorded in April 2014 (128.25±9.137) and lowest during the month of September 2013 (79.2±9.137) (P<0.05).The average leaf area (LA) (cm2) of shoots at different growth stages could be estimated as a function of cumulative thermal time (R2~1). Fresh weight of harvestable TRI 2025 tea shoots could be predicted with a high precision (R2=0.9).