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Fertilizer must to
enhance vigorous growth of tea plants
Fertilizer must to enhance vigorous growth of tea plants
Fertilizer is essential for vigorous growth of young tea
plants because lack of insufficient supply of nutrients suffer
healthy growth of the plants.
The Tea crop is very responsive to nitrogen and the Japanese
farmers use 600-1000 kg N/hs evidently not for the yield but
for quality considerations.
Although use of animal excrement on cultivated soils was
common as far back as agricultural records can be traced,
inorganic fertilizers have been systematically and extensively
employed for the enhancement of crop growth for hardly more
than 100 years.
According to a study of National Agriculture Research Center (NARC)
until early eighties ammonium sulphate was extensively used as
a source of nitrogenous fertilizer in fertilizer mixtures in
Sri Lanka.
In addition to nitrogen the annonium sulphate also provided
sulphur to the soils which plays a vital role in
photosynthetic activities of the plant and any limitation or
insufficiency of this nutrient, adversely affects the
photosynthesis and carbohydrate metabolism of the plant.
Ammonium sulphate being an acidic salt plays an essential role
in reducing soil pH. Tea grows best in soils having pH of 6.0.
The object of the present study was to investigate the optimal
does of ammonium sulphate and its effect on soil pH in
addition to growth and yield of tea bushes.
The study was conducted at the National Tea Research
Institute, Shinkiari, district Mansehra and five-year-old tea
bushes of "Qi-Men" variety were pruned at a height of 40 cm.
The pH value of the soil at 0-15, 15-30 and 30-45 cm depths,
determined before starting the experiment were 5.6, 5.9 and
6.1, respectively.
The experiment plot size was 10mx10m in and comprised 160 tea
bushes which were given a basal dressing of potassium sulphate
@24 g/treatment. There were 32 bushes in each treatment.
The experiment was laid out in a completely randomised design
with four replications. Nitrogenous fertilizer ie ammonium
sulphate was applied in two splits, during the year. The
treatments were T1=control, T2=30kg N,T2=60 kg N, t4=120 kg N,
and T5=240 kg N/acre/annum. Other agronomic practices were
applied uniformly to all the treatments.
Data relating to the yield "bud+2" (fine plucking), number of
plucking points, growth rate –and soil pH were recorded and
analysed?
(APP )
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