Correlation of tea green leafhopper occurrence with leaf structure and biochemical components in different tea cultivars

Abstract

Being one of the most disastrous pierce-sucking pests of tea plants [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze], tea green leafhopper (Empoasca onukii Matsuda) greatly affects tea yield and quality. In this paper, correlations among leaf structure, biochemical components and tea green leafhopper occurrence in tea cultivars with larger planting area were deeply analyzed, aiming to find the key factor impacting the host selectivity of tea green leafhopper. Tea cultivar ‘Longjing 43’, together with ‘Shuchazao’, showed the most susceptibility to this pest with high tea polyphenols content. And the best resistant tea plant cultivar, ‘Caoxi No.1’, largely relied on the thicker leaf, epidermis (both upper and lower), cuticle and spongy tissue as revealed by principal component analysis. Here, we suggested that tea polyphenols were considered as a biochemical marker for determining the resistance ability to tea green leafhopper of different tea cultivars, along with leaf upper and lower structures as mechanical barriers, which can potentially be used to promote breeding of insect-resistant tea plants.