Screening tea varieties for nitrogen efficiency

ABSTRACT

In pursuit of highyield, blind application of a large number of nitrogen fertilizer in tea plantation has not only seriously affected the quality of tea, but also resulted in environmental degradation. This study aimed to screenvarieties of tea cultivars with nitrogen efficiency. Twenty five different tea cultivars were collected and transferred into pot planting experiments to study their changes of total nitrogen and nitrogen utilization efficiency under absence nitrogen supply [0 mmol L⁻¹ ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃)] and normal nitrogen (6 mmol L⁻¹NH₄NO₃). Comparison with normal nitrogen supply, the biomass, total uptake of nitrogenand nitrogen utilization efficiencyof most tea cultivars under nitrogen deficiency tended to decrease. The cluster analysis of relative indices (RI) of biomass, total nitrogen contents, and nitrogen utilization efficiencyindicates that the Fudingdahao (#3), Zimudan (#23), and Huangdan (#24) tea cultivars are not sensitive to nitrogen deficiency and it can greatly resist with low nitrogen supply.

KEYWORDS:

• nitrogen efficiency
• resource
• screening
• tea cultivar

Funding

This work was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province, China (Project No.2012J01098), Modern Agro-Industry Technology ResearchSystem (Project: nycytx-23), and the Center Collaborative Innovation of Oolong tea inchina (Project:2013–51)