Effects of location of production, fertilizer rates and plucking intervals on mature leaf nutrients of clone TRFK 6/8 in East Africa.

Abstract

Mature tea leaf has been adopted in East Africa for nutrients diagnosis to guide remedial applications of nutrients and cushion the plants from possible deficiencies that would affect yields and quality. Although it is known that nitrogen rates affect tea yields, it is not known how nitrogen rates and plucking interval affect the leaf nutrients content of one cultivar growing in different regions of production in East Africa. This study assessed the effect of location of production, nitrogen rates and plucking interval on mature leaf nutrients. The study was done on an ongoing NPKS 25: 5: 5: 5 fertilizer trial on clone TRFK 6/8 in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. Leaf Ca, Mg, Mn, Zn, Cu and Fe were determined using standard methods. The results showed that mean amounts of the nutrients were not uniform for the eight sites and there were significant (P≤ 0.05) interactions between sites and …