Tea Cultivation - Pruning and Pluking

Pruning
Objectives of pruning • Maintaining convenient height to facilitate plucking operation. • Checking reproductive growth and stimulating vigorous shoot system, rationalising wood /shoot ratio. • Removing dead, diseased and defunct wood thus help rejuvenate bushes that have crossed the period of maximum productivity. • Minimising formation of banjhi (dormant shoots) and spreading of pests and diseases. • Renewing the growing branches and maintaining the sufficient volume of maintenance foliage to meet the physiological needs of the plant. • Controlling crop during rush periods and to achieve better crop distribution. Maintaining quality in processed tea
Pre-requisites for pruning Starch reserve in the plant is a major determinant for pruning because the new growth relies on the starch reserves. Therefore, pruning in any form without an adequate reserve of carbohydrates could be disastrous. At the time of pruning, removal of a large volume of foliage and young shoot taken place and that stops carbohydrate synthesising activities of the plants, it is the carbohydrate reserve in the roots that helps the plant to recover from pruning. Slow and irregular recovery from pruning has been observed if the bushes are short of nutrients. This apart, the bushes should have the efficiency for speedy uptake of fertilizer applied before pruning within a certain interval. Potash fertilizer has a great influence on the recovery of bushes from the pruning. Time of pruning This has a significant effect on the recovery of the bushes after pruning. Considering the starch reserve in roots, November-January is the ideal time for pruning tea bushes in Darjeeling hills Heavy pruning in mid to high elevations of Darjeeling can be started as early as August provided labour availability is not a constraint and starch reserves in the roots are satisfactory. In low elevation gardens, it should commence in October. In India, lighter forms of prune or skiff are periodically applied to regulate leaf supply and provide photosynthetically active foliage.
Types of pruning Light or top pruning Maintenance or light pruning is done at 3 to 5 cm above the previous pruning mark when the bush under plucking becomes too high in 4 – 5 years. The height of pruning determines the number of leaf bearing branches. The technique of light pruning involves a uniform cut-across which is carried out at various heights. In Darjeeling with 4 year cycle, 4 – 5 cm of new wood is left.
	Medium pruning It is done to reduce height of the bushes, so that they do not exceed a height of 80 cm in the plains garden. The plucking table in the slopes of the Darjeeling hills is normally lower than in the plains and the height of the bush has to be adjusted to the slopes of the terrain. The maximum height of this pruning is not well defined but it is generally done above the height of the original frame-forming pruning. If the frame forming prune was given at 45 cm then medium prune can be done at any point above this height. Medium pruning helps removal of congested top hamper of weak and twiggy branches arising from continuous picking of shoots on the top of the bush. This apart, medium pruning is done to remove knots, diseased wood and to reduce the proportion of unproductive wood. Plants must be rested for six to eight weeks before carrying out medium pruning.
Skiffing A lighter form of cut which removes knotted and congested stems and permits flushing to resume after only a short interval. It is done sometimes in order to lower the plucking table. The object of skiffing, particularly in north India, is to have an early high quality first flush and total crop as well. Skiffing also helps in thickening the pruning wood and improving the general health of the bushes. Different forms of skiffing are practiced which are defined as follows:
	Deep skiff (DS) This is normally given a year after pruning. In deep skiff, a cut is given midway between the pruning and tipping levels. For instance, if tea is tipped at 20 cm, deep skiff can be given 10 cm above the last pruning level. Deep skiffing after one or more years of unpruned or level skiffs is cut midway between the pruning level and the height of the plucking table at the end of the season, provided not more than 25 cm of growth is removed by the skiff. For instance, if the plucking height at the end of the season is 30 cm above the pruning mark, tea will be deep skiffed at 15 cm above the pruning mark.
	Medium skiff (MS) The main object of medium skiffing is to remove the congestion of dead and unproductive twigs at the top, that is removal of so-called “crow’s feet”. Therefore, a cut often given at a height of 15 cm above the pruning mark or 5 cm below the previous year’s tipping level to take care of the majority of the unproductive twigs. Light skiff (LS) In this skiff, a superficial cut is given 20 cm above pruning level just to remove a majority of the plucking points to reestablish a level.
	Level-off skiff (LOS) This is a skiff where a cut is given 6 to 8 cm above current years tipping level to remove the top. The important feature of skiffing is to retain more leaves on the bush frame. In order to keep the crop loss to the minimum, it is better to complete the skiffing before mid August in the tea estates of Darjeeling hills. In Darjeeling, where plucking of banjhis (dormant shoots) between flushes on unpruned or light skiffed tea in the third or fourth year of the cycle is not possible, skiffing can be done to remove the banjhis immediately following a round of plucking. The presence of banjhis could seriously affect the growth of new shoots. In terms of crop return, deep skiff would give more of second flush and main crop, whereas other forms of skiffing ensure more of first flush.
	Heavy or low pruning The heavy pruning is a variant of collar pruning and common in Darjeeling when fall in yield is observed. The height of heavy pruning depends on the type of tea and condition of the frame. Generally, the bole is cut at 25 to 37 cm in case of Chinary kind bushes. If the bushes found affected by Aglaospora, it is pruned to the ground level. This pruning can only be done after considering the health of plants and starch reserve. Till new flush of shoots on the bushes has produced some leaves, retention of some branches as ‘lungs’ or ‘breathers’ at the time of heavy pruning to facilitate better supply of photosynthates to the roots for early recovery is practiced.

Pruning cycle The interval of time between two successive prunes is called a pruning cycle. The length of pruning cycle may vary from 1 to 6 years depending on growth pattern of the tea cultivar, soil-climatological conditions, plant variety, height of pruning, quality, quantity of crop needed and availability of plucker. Further, most of these factors interacts to influence productivity, therefore, without considering of these interacting process it is very difficult to generalise anything on an appropriate pruning cycle. In Darjeeling hills, as the first and second flush crop fetches better price, most of the gardens tend to keep 80 percent or more of the areas under unprune or light skiffed. Sometimes following of 8 to 9 years pruning cycle having more LS, LOS and UP. This cause damage to the bush structure and affects the yield in the long run. The effect of extended pruning cycle in Darjeeling have been investigated and observed that a four year pruning cycle is better than a six year cycle. However, a five year pruning cycle may also be tried at mid to high elevation. It was also suggested suitability of a 3-year LP-UP-LS or a 4-year LP-UP-MS-LS cycle in most of the areas of Darjeeling hills. Under very slow growing conditions a 5-year cycle of LP-UP-LS-DS-UP can be considered. Tipping It is an essential operation aimed at forming a level plucking surface and to induce branching at a high level which will produce more plucking points in the bushes recovering from pruning. If the recovery is slow and uneven after pruning, it is advisable to defer tipping until growth is well distributed all over the frame of the bush and eventually breaking back over grown shoots to the desired level. Simultaneously, if tipping operation get delayed it would be difficult to break the primary stems easily with fingers by the tippers. In practice, tipping is started when about 30 percent of the bushes are ready for tipping and carried out selectively at green semi-hard wood. It was emphasized the importance of tipping height of 20 cm for the bush of Assam kind, 15 cm for the hybrids and 10 cm above the pruning mark for China or China hybrid bushes grown in Darjeeling.

Plucking Plucking is the most important harvesting operation and intricately related to pruning and tipping. In tea, the tender apical portions of shoots comprising the terminal bud, the internodes and two or three expanding leaves immediately below it, which together constitute the crop, the ‘flush’ is removed at periodic intervals. Plucking provides stimulus and ensures regeneration of shoots if a steady supply of assimilates to growing buds is ensured by the retention of adequate photosynthetic machinery of the bush.
	It has been worked out in the past that harvesting the first two leaves together with the unfurled bud is the best compromise between the conflicting demands of high yield and high quality. For plucking, it is convenient to have a smooth surface at the top of the bush. The top is flat and approximately parallel to the ground in most of the tea growing countries. This is known as the ‘plucking table’. In the field, bamboo-basket which is often carried in the back are generally used in Darjeeling for collection of plucked leaves.
	Plucking standard In most tea growing regions, growers will specify a ‘target’ type of shoots that represents the most profitable compromise between the value and the quantity of the plucked leaf. Different plucking standards are in vogue in India. A fine plucking consists of one leaf and a bud, two leaves and a bud and single banjhi. Fine plucking is done in order to produce a very high quality and highest value tea; at times buds only have been plucked. Tea from buds was at one time referred to as ‘tips’; the term now often refers to a high quality tea separated by sorting in the factory. Standard or normal plucking consists of one leaf and a bud, two leaves and a bud, single banjhis and three leaves and a bud. Medium consists of two leaves and a bud, single and double banjhis. Coarse will have two leaves and a bud, all shoots larger than two leaves and a bud and double banjhis. However, removal of banjhis and breaking back should be a part plucking operation.
Plucking rounds The time interval in days between pluckings is known as the ‘plucking round’. This has a cardinal role in harvesting maximum crop without impairing the quality. It is also a matter of critical importance to tea estate economics. Tea planters on Darjeeling in recent years, has been resorting to finest type of plucking to ensure better price. Sometimes 2/3 days plucking round is also undertaken for first and second flush periods. It was reported that shorter plucking intervals in Darjeeling yielded higher crop better quality compared to extended intervals. The gain in yield recorded per annum was mainly because of gain in total plucking rounds in a year. It was also found on and average 4/5 day plucking interval throughout the year for old Chinary tea plantation is beneficial. Handling of harvested leaf Generally, leaf after plucking certain quantity/full basket taken to a collecting-point and weighed and then moved to the factory for processing. Withering in fact starts as soon as the leaf is plucked. The careless handling between the time of plucking and its arrival at the withering troughs is one of main causes of the loss of quality. Pluckers when plucking leaf in the field damage the same by grasping it too tightly in their hand, and bruising it when putting into baskets. Plucked leaves are generally packed either in coir bags or plastic containers. A variety of means of transport are used for transportation of leaf to the factory. While transporting in lorries or tractor-drawn trailers the bags should not be placed one above the other and to enable more bags to be put on a truck a removable intermediate floor is advisable.