Germination and growth of tea seed in response to different sowing dates
Germination and growth of tea seed in response to different sowing dates
Abdur Rauf Khan, Farrukh Siyar Hamid and Naseer Ahmad
ABSTRACT
Tea was introduced in Pakistan in mid-twenties.
Earlier tea was supplied by East Pakistan which is now
Bangladesh. After dismemberment in 1971, an acute
shortage of tea was faced by Pakistan. Since that time, the
increasing demand of tea is met by imports from a
number of countries which involves a huge amount of
foreign exchange. The annual consumption of tea in
Pakistan is more than 90 million kgs, which costs more
than US $ 200 million on its import. To meet the growing
demand for tea and to save the foreign exchange, efforts
were made to produce tea locally, for this purpose, tea
seed was imported from Indonesia, Srilanka and China
and were sown at various locations in Murree, Azad
Kashmir and Hazara. The agro-ecological conditions of
the Daively in Hazara were found to be suitable for tea
cultivation because of low pH (6.0 - 5.5) and sandy loam
characteristics of the soils. The area receives rainfall
ranging from 1000 mm to 1200 mm per annum with mean
minimum and maximum temperatures of -1°C and 32°C
respectively. It has been reported by Kathiravetpillai and
Kulasegaram (1986) that tea can best be grown on loam
and sandy loam soil with pH of about 5.0. Further, Mann
(1935) found that tea could be grown on sites with mean
monthly minimum temperature of -5°C to 20°C and
maximum of 20°C to 30°C in both for tropical and
semitropical regions.
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September 1990
Vol. 40, Iss. 3
