Review on Spring Frost Disaster for Tea Plant in China

Abstract

As a main economic crop in China, tea plant is prone to frost disaster when it germinates in early spring. The research progress and main achievements of tea plant spring frost disaster are systematically summarized. In southern Yangtze River, the research on disaster index and risk assessment of tea plant spring frost disaster is abundant. As for the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of the disaster, most of the existing studies are based on regional scales and provincial scales, focusing on Southern Yangtze River. There are few reports on the spatio-temporal distribution on the national scale. Tea plant spring frost disaster index can be divided into three categories based on classification criteria. According to data acquisition method, it can be classified into morphological index and laboratory physiological morphological index. According to data category, it can be determined only by meteorological data, or by both meteorological data and tea plant disaster symptoms. According to the time scale of meteorological data, it can be further subdivided into daily scale and hourly scale. In the context of global warming, although the frequency of tea plant spring frost is declining, its harm cannot be ignored. The frequency of tea plant spring frost in Southern Yangtze River shows latitudinal distribution characteristic that gradually increases from south to north. And the topographic distribution characteristic is also revealed that the frequency of tea plant spring frost increases with elevated altitude. For the impact assessment of tea plant spring frost, the areas, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces, are paid close attention, and the research method is gradually developing from qualitative assessment to quantitative assessment. The risk assessment methods of tea plant spring frost mainly include fuzzy mathematics method and information diffusion method. In recently researches, risk levels are determined by models based on the natural disaster risk formation mechanism. In the future, the construction of tea spring frost disaster index based on the micro-climate factors in tea gardens will become hotspot. Furthermore, the meteorological index of tea spring frost should be improved, and the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics on national scale, and the refined risk assessment will also be paid more attention.