Influence Of One And Two Node Cuttings On Rapid Vegetatively Propagated Infilling Tea (Camellia Sinesis) Plants

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.