Tea growing and manufacture
p. 149 · Read in the full issue
is a science today
These are some of the other points made by Sir Percival Griffiths in his new book, “The History of the Indian Tea Industry”:
• The processes involved in the iltivation of the tea bush do not Iffer greatly from those applied in ther forms of agriculture and the chnical developments in the field ave, therefore, not been as spec icular as those in the factory, evertheless considerable changes of ractice have resulted from the of knowledge regarding /ery one of the stages of agriculture -site selection and clearance; pro jction of seed; the establishment E nurseries or the use of vegetative ropagation; weeding and hoeing; the 5e of shade; the application of fer lisers and manure; pruning; pluck ig; the treatment of blights and jsts. • The most conservative planters ill probably scoff at [some] new mgled methods, but it is probable lat scientific measurement will be >re long reinforce —or even super ;de—the skilled personal judgment f the planter. • Soil chemistry is one of the de artments of agriculture in which reat advances have been made in ic present century and those de slopments have been extensively pplied in tea.
Fertilisers
• One of the most spectacular de elopments in recent decades has een the introduction of artificial ntilisers. It might have been thought lat knowledge of general agricultural ractice would make all the early lanters believe in the application of rganic manure, but this was not pparently the case. • With the generous application f fertilisers now customary, the litial growth left on mature tea be 3re plucking is often seven or eight iches —a great deal more than pre war. Much importance is now ttached to a regular plucking round, nd at any rate in Assam a seven ay round is regarded as the norm. • At one time planters were in lined to believe that closer planting /ould necessarily result in higher ields, but though this is perhaps so n the early years, the modern
scientific view seems to be that a mere change in planting patterns will not produce a bigger yield from a given area beyond a certain limit. • There is no virtue in deep hoeing. The important thing in modern theory is to let the bush cover the soil and suppress weeds by shading. • In modern practice collar prun ing has been completely abandoned . . . There are however many views as to uses of medium pruning, light pruning, skiffing, or leaving tea un pruned and it need only be said that planters today would regard with horror any return to the old severe methods. In one other respect prun ing practice has changed. At one time it was common to prune each bush “on its merits”, and this neces sarily produced a very uneven pluck ing table. During the last two or three decades level or contour prun ing has become usual and an un broken plucking surface is character istic of tea gardens today.
Value of shade
• Modern authorities would per haps be less inclined to attribute the value of shade trees to any one cause, but the subject is still a matter of controversy. In general, most plan ters and scientists would accept the need for shade for tea in North-East India while recognising the need for a better understanding of its direct effects on the tea bush, its effects on the soil and on the atmosphere im mediately round the tea bush. It is possible that shade may lessen severity of attack by some pests, especially red spider, but more experi mental evidence on this must be awaited . . . During the past two decades pests and diseases of shade trees have become more serious, and planters have been heard to say it is now harder to get shade growing than to grow tea bushes. • There is, of course, no general answer to the question as to what is
Practical Planter
the life of the tea bush, and all that can be said is that many planters now reckon to replace about 2i per cent, of their tea bushes annually and that there may be some ground for thinking that when tea is re planted on some land which has pre viously borne tea, its life may be considerably less than that of the original bushes. The rehabilitation of old tea land before replanting, including the need for a rest period of one or more years under a leguminous green crop, is now being intensively studied by Tocklai [tea research station]. • The tea industry, indeed, may be said to have been very progressive in its post-war outlook. Work at Tocklai has been expanded consider ably, great progress has been made in the chemistry of made tea, and engineering developments have been remarkable. Steps have in fact been taken which may revolutionise the technique and economy of the in dustry, and it is a far cry from the days when old-fashioned Darjeeling planters used to say that a dirty fer menting floor encouraged bacteria and so gave a fine flavour to tea! • It is clear that after a long period during which tea machinery changed comparatively little, the last decade or so has been a period of restless inquiry and rapid change, the ultimate effect of which on costs and quality cannot yet be predicted.