Tea Research Research Articles

Effect of Different Types of Pruning Operations on Yield and Quality of Tea

Aims: Pruning is the cutting of branches of a tea bush at predetermined height and at a specified interval in order to reinvigorate and bring tea bushes within reach of the pluckers, which directly related to the productivity and quality of tea. In Bangladesh, Three and four year pruning cycles were the conventional recommendations for the tea plantation. In this experiment, along with BTRI recommended four types of pruning operations (LP, DSK, MSK and LSK), two more types of pruning operations such as: UP (Unprune) and LoS (Level of Skiff) were considered as treatments. This experiment was conducted with two main objectives: to evaluate the yield and yield related parameters of tea due to different types of pruning operations as well as to find out the effect of pruning operations on organoleptic quality of black tea.
 Study Design, Place and Duration of Study: This experiment was conducted ‘D2 Thall’ area at the main research farm of Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) from December 2017 to November 2019. The experimental design was Randomized Completely Block Design (RCBD) with six treatments and three replications.
 Methodology:
 The treatments are denoted as T1 (UP: Unpruned) control, T2 (LP: Light Pruning), T3 (DSK: Deep Skiffing), T4 (MSK: Medium Skiffing), T5 (LSK: Light Skiffing) and T6 (LoS: Level of Skiffing) respectively. Data were collected under the following parameters:
 
 Number of plucking point or pluckable shoot/bush in each plucking
 Fresh weight (g) of 100 shoots (three leaves and a bud)
 Oven Dry weight (g) of 100 shoots (three leaves and a bud) to calculate Dry Matter Content
 Green leaf weight (kg) to calculate Yield of each treatment
 Number of plucking round to calculate Yield gap of each treatment
 Black Tea Quality of each treatment by Organoleptic Tasting Method.
 
 Results: It was found that, number of plucking points/pluckable shoot and yield were found significantly high in T6 (Level of Skiffing), T5 (Light Skiffing) and T1 (Unpruned) than the other treatments. But in terms of tea quality, lowest quality tea was found in T1 (Unpruned), T6 (Level of Skiffing) and T5 (Light Skiffing) treatment. So, it can be concluded that, ‘Skiff Pruning’ or ‘Unprune’ technique had positive effect on yield but the quality of these technique were poor in comparison with other treatments. T2 (Light Pruning) treatment gave more tender and fresh shoot than the other treatment. For this reason, dry matter was low in T2 (Light Pruning) treatment but tea quality was much better than the other pruning technique.
 Conclusion: Pruning has positive or negative effect on yield and quality of tea. ‘Skiff Pruning’ or
 ‘Unprune’ has positive effect on yield but the quality of is poor than the other treatments. Best Quality tea can be produced from Light Pruning tea section because of having more tender and fresh shoot than other treatments.

Comparative Study of Mineral Content in Different Varieties of Green Tea

Camellia sinensis L. leaves composed of different concentrations of mineral contents play a vital role in human nutrition and health. In this study, locally processed three different green tea varieties i.e. P3, P5 and P9 were used for mineral content determination at National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI), Shinkiari, Mansehra, Pakistan. Atomic absorption spectrophotometer, flame photometer and Kjehldal apparatus were used for the determination of mineral concentration in all the collected tea samples. Mineral composition of tea samples were identified in the following quantity order: high level of nitrogen (37300 to 41380 mg/L), calcium (515.6 to 522.1 mg/L) and phosphorus (742 to 1220 mg/L) were observed in all tea samples compared to other minerals. Cobalt (Co), molybdenum (Mo), sodium (Na), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu) were highest in P3, while least amount was identified in P5, variety. On the contrary, calcium (Ca), potassium (K) and lead (Pb) contents were maximum in P5, while minimum were in P3. This study revealed that the levels of mineral elements in different varieties of green tea vary from the permissible level but the monitoring of their levels in tea plant is obligatory for future risk measurements.

Using Sensory Wheels to Characterize Consumers' Perception for Authentication of Taiwan Specialty Teas.

In the context of fair trade and protection of consumer rights, the aim of this study was to combat adulteration, counterfeiting, and fraud in the tea market, and rebuild the image of high-quality Taiwan teas. Experts at the Tea Research and Extension Station, Taiwan (TRES), are engaged in promotion of the systems of origin identification (AOC) and grading for authentication of Taiwan’s premium teas. From tea evaluation competitions (bottom-up quality campaign), the flavor descriptions and consumers’ perceptions were deconvoluted and characterized for the eight Taiwan specialty teas, namely, Bi-Luo-Chun, Wenshan Paochong, High-Mountain Oolong, Dongding Oolong, Tieh-Kuan-Yin, Red Oolong, Oriental Beauty, and Taiwan black tea. Then, according to the manufacturing processes, producing estates and flavor characters, the specialty teas were categorized into six sensory wheels. The flavor descriptors of the sensory wheels were also recognized in consumers’ feedback. In recent years, the performance of international trade in tea also demonstrates that the policy guidelines for authentication of specialty teas are helpful to the production and marketing. Furthermore, the development of sensory wheels of Taiwan’s specialty teas is the cornerstone to the establishment of the Taiwan-tea assortment and grading system (TAGs) for communication with the new generation consumers, enthusiasts, sellers, and producers.

Accomplishments of Tea Research in Uganda in the Year 2019

Tea is Uganda’s third most important export earner and oscillates between coffee and fish. The current production in the country is 59,000 tonnes of made tea per year, earning 104 million United States Dollars to the Uganda’s economy. Despite its importance to Uganda, the tea sector is faced with a number of constraints that include rising production costs, age of tea bushes, high overhead costs, poor agronomic agricultural practices, pests and diseases, low genetic potential, poor seed system, low labour productivity,and climate change. Since the collapse of Tea Research Institute of East Africa, tea research in Uganda has been dormant for three decades, due to limitations in tea experts, finance, and infrastructure. This review paper highlights the current tea research accomplishments made with the help of government of Uganda Agricultural Technology and Agribusiness Advisory Service (ATAAS) funding. These endeavors include: a) Genetic structure of tea diversity in Uganda has been determined, b) Characterization of tea clones with desirable attributes initiated, c) Soil nutrient up take of tea clones has been determined, d) Screening tea clones for resistance to Xylaria and Armillaria diseases and e) Tea dissemination material accomplished. This paper further spells out the future perspective and strategic intervention of tea research in Uganda.

Evaluation of physicochemical and organoleptic properties of wild tea (<em>Camellia sinensis</em>) compared to selected commercially grown tea cultivars in Sri Lanka

“Ceylon tea”, has a special place as one of the best quality tea among the tea drinkers worldwide. However, Sri Lankan tea industry is facing some challenges associated with lower productivity and increasing cost of production. Therefore, higher price should be gained through value addition and product differentiation. Production of wild tea is one such strategy associated with higher demand in niche markets. An experiment was conducted to evaluate qualities of wild tea with compared to commercially cultivated tea and free growing cultivar in the Low Country region in Sri Lanka. Wild tea, free growing cultivar (TRI 2025), two commercial cultivars from the Tea Research Station in Rathnapura (TRI 4049 and TRI 2023) and one cultivar from a commercial grower (TRI 2023) were used for evaluation. Phytochemical investigation was carried out on methanol crude extracts of the made tea leaves. The made tea samples were subjected to organoleptic evaluation to determine its quality and preference. Significantly highest total phenolic content, total flavonoid content and the highest ABTS+ free radical scavenging activities were recorded in wild tea than other commercial cultivars. Organoleptic qualities such as colour, aroma, taste, strength and overall acceptability were favorably higher in wild tea, over the other commercial cultivars.

Determination of Green Tea Recovery Percentage and Its Relation to Different Weather Parameters

Aims: Green tea is one of the most popular drinks and millions of cups are consumed every day in entire world. In Bangladesh, people mainly prefer CTC (Crush-Tear-Curl) black tea but now-a-days health conscious people are being habituated to green tea due to its beneficial effect to health. Since our green tea production is very little compared to black tea production, our concept and knowledge about green tea is also very low. This experiment was conducted with two main objectives: to determine the green tea recovery percentage and to find its relation to different weather parameters.
 Study Design: This experiment was conducted by following Factorial Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications.
 Place and Duration of Study: This experiment was conducted at Miniature Factory of Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) Sreemangal, Moulvibazar-3210 from March 2017 to November 2017.
 Methodology: BTRI recommended green tea manufacturing process (Green Leaves→ Steaming→ Cooling→ Rolling→ Drying) was followed in this experiment to calculate the recovery percentage. Weight of green leaves after each stage and recovery percentage were calculated. Monthly weather data of four parameters: temperature (°C), rainfall (mm), relative humidity (%) and sunshine hour were also collected. Correlation Coefficient (r) was calculated by Pearson’s mathematical formulation to quantify the degree of relationship. Linear regression equation was also generated to predict recovery percentages against different weather parameters only when the relationship was significant.
 Results: In case of BTRI recommended green tea manufacturing process the average recovery percentage was 19.19% with an average moisture content of 3.72%. Among four weather parameters, temperature (°C) has negative insignificant (correlation coefficient, r=-0.43 and P=0.2523) relation on recovery percentage. But there was a strong significant (P=0.000146) negative effect (r=-0.942) of rainfall on recovery percentage. While a moderate non-significant (P=0.322807) negative relation (r=-0.37) of relative humidity and a considerable high positive non-significant (P=0.073687) relation (r=0.62) of sunshine hour on recovery percentage was found in this study.
 Conclusion: Green tea recovery percentage was 19.19% with an average moisture content of 3.72% which can be different with different weather conditions in every month. Among four weather parameters, mainly rainfall was responsible for the variation of recovery percentages in different months.

The Chromosome-Level Reference Genome of Tea Tree Unveils Recent Bursts of Non-autonomous LTR Retrotransposons in Driving Genome Size Evolution

The Chromosome-Level Reference Genome of Tea Tree Unveils Recent Bursts of Non-autonomous LTR Retrotransposons in Driving Genome Size Evolution

Assessment of Land Suitability for Tea Cultivation Using Geo- Informatics in the Mansehra and Abbottabad District

Pakistan is a major tea consumer country and ranked as one of the largest importer of tea worldwide. This research has been conducted over district Mansehra and district Abbottabad in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan where the most favourable conditions for tea cultivation already exist and National Tea Research Institute has done successful experiments to cultivate high quality tea. High tech approach is adopted to meet the objectives of this research by using the remotely sensed data i.e. Aster DEM, Land sat8 Imagery. Results showed that in study area 13.24% (778.3 sq.km.) is highly suitable, 33.44% (1966 sq.km.) is suitable, 30.71% area (1805 sq.km.) is moderately suitable, 16.13% area (948.5 sq.km.) is less suitable, and 6.46% (379.3 sq.km.) is not suitable for tea cultivation. This geomatics based model and approach could be used to identify more areas for tea cultivation to meet country's demand.

Changes in growth, biochemical, and chemical characteristics and alteration of the antioxidant defense system in the leaves of tea clones (Camellia sinensis L.) under drought stress

In this study, we measured the morphological, biochemical, and chemical responses to soil drying in nine tea clones [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] grown in a field. Thirteen-year-old tea plants at Shahid Eftekhari Fashalam Experimental Station, Tea Research Center of Iran, were subject to drought stress by withholding water for 40 days. The control group of the clones was regularly watered. The soil moisture content of the non-irrigated and irrigated plants was monitored throughout the experiment. The effects of drought stress were measured by studying physiological (Relative Water Content), biochemical (Proline and Total Sugar Content), and antioxidant activities (Catalase and Peroxidase) after 20 days and 40 days of drought imposition. Green leaf yield and chemical parameters included total polyphenol, caffeine, water extract, and total ash were measured after 40 days of drought stress. Drought stress resulted in a decrease in total polyphenol, water extract, and total ash and an increase in proline, total sugar concentration and, in CAT and POD activities, as a consequence of reduced RWC of the leaves. Thus, drought stress caused a range of biochemical, physiological, and chemical variations, resulting in membrane damage and loss in the functions of the cell and finally a decrease in the tea growth as one of the most important economic crops. The results of grouping the clones under irrigation and drought stress conditions and comparing them with the results of mean comparison of the traits showed that in all cases, clones 276, 100, 285, and 277 were in the group that can be identified as the drought-tolerant group. Also, the results showed that in most cases, clones 278 and 74 were placed in a group that had low values for all the traits and could be considered as a group that is susceptible to drought stress. Overall, these findings provide new insight into the mechanisms of tolerance to drought in tea plants.

Anthracnose in U.S. Tea: Pathogen Characterization and Susceptibility Among Six Tea Accessions.

Tea (Camellia sinensis [L.] O. Kuntze) is under investigation as a specialty crop in the United States. Anthracnose is a serious disease in global tea production, but there is no literature on the susceptibility of U.S. planting materials to this disease. We isolated a Colletotrichum species from symptomatic plants in a field trial and identified the pathogen as Colletotrichum camelliae based on morphology and sequencing of the ITS, GS, GAPDH, TUB2, and ApMat domains. A phylogenetic analysis showed that local field isolates were genetically similar to one another and grouped with isolates from C. sinensis in China, whereas a local isolate from an ornamental camellia (C. japonica) was more closely related to C. camelliae isolated from other Camellia spp. Six commercially available tea accessions were evaluated in detached leaf assays for susceptibility to this anthracnose pathogen. All accessions were susceptible to infection, with Fairhope and Small Leaf having the largest lesion sizes. In field observations, Fairhope, Big Leaf, and Small Leaf consistently had lower disease severity than Georgian over two growing seasons. This work documents the impact of anthracnose on U.S. tea varieties and may help shape future directions of tea research, breeding, and recommendations for growers in establishing a novel industry.

Effects of Different Fertilizer Rates on Total Polyphenols and Catechins of Selected Clones of Green Tea (<i>Camellia sinensis</i> L. [O] Kuntze)

Application of inorganic NPK (nitrogen: phosphorus: potassium) fertilizers on tea (<i>Camellia sinensis</i>) has been common among small-scale tea farmers to increase production. However, the cost of fertilizers has been increasing and reducing their net returns. Fertilizers applications also affect the quality of the crop which is mainly dictated by the total polyphenols and catechins; these metabolites are responsible for its anti-oxidant activity, taste and aroma. The focus of this work was on the effect of varying NPK fertilizer application rate on the levels of total polyphenols and catechins of green tea made from three tea cultivars and development of an optimum NPK fertilizer application rate. Samples of three varieties, AHP S15/10, TRFK 6/8 (Tea Research Foundation of Kenya), and BBK 35, were collected from Mettarora, Arroket and Monire tea estates within Sotik highlands. Randomized complete block design sampling was used and sampling was done 6-8 weeks after application of the treatment. The fertilizer used was inorganic plain NPK fertilizer and NPK fertilizer supplemented with Molybdenum. The experimental treatments consisted of six treatments made up NPK 25:5:5; at 0, 75, 150, 225, 300, and 375 kg N/ha/year. The collected samples were processed as non-aerated green CTC (Cut, Tear and Curl) teas at the miniature processing factory unit at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation - Tea Research Institute (KALRO-TRI) at Kericho County. Processed tea samples were milled and chemical analysis done to quantify the levels of biochemicals in the samples. Data obtained were subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and mean separation was done using the least significant difference test at <i>p</i> ≤0.05. TRFK 6/8 was found to have the highest mean percentage total polyphenols of 25.90 followed by BBK 35 with a mean percentage total polyphenols of 25.75. AHP S15/10 recorded the least mean percentage total polyphenols of 23.70. A similar trend was observed in the mean percentages of catechins with TRFK 6/8, BBK 35 and AHP S 15/10 recording 20.7%, 18.87% 18.46% respectively. Hence, use of optimum NPK fertilizer application rate specific to each clone supplemented with Molybdenum boosts the levels of polyphenols and catechins in green tea.

The First International Conference on Sustainable Plantation: Better Environment with Better Prosperity, Harmonization of Humankind and Nature.

The first International Conference for Sustainable Plantation (First ICSP) was conducted at IPB International Convention Center (IICC), Bogor, Indonesia. It was conducted to facilitate exchanges among estate crops researchers about the advance progress in estate crop research. The first ICSP was an immense success and attracting as many as 192 attendants. The participants were from Australia, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and the Netherland. One hundreed one presentations were presented in the first ICSP, by scientists from Indonesia, Japan, Australia, India and the Netherland. The major estate crops and plantations presented in the first ICSP include: cocoa, coconut, coffee, nutmeg, oil palm, rubber, pepper, sago palm, sugar cane, sugar palm, tea, and other miscellaneous plantation crops and research areas related to the crops.

Optimization of &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Camellia sinensis&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; Crop Productivity by Use of Blended Fertilizers

Tea (<i>Camellia sinensis</i>) is the top foreign exchange earner in Kenya. Its demand is relatively high and this has triggered increased production. Manufacturing companies have also stiff competitions amongst themselves on the aspect of branding. However, for quality assurance and high productivity, the nature of fertilizer in regard to its nutrients has played a major role. This study investigated the effects of blended NPK (Nitrogen:phosphorus:potassium) fertilizer on tea crop productivity in different growing regions of Kenya. The optimum sustainable rate of fertilizer application was also determined. Different rates of 0, 75, 150 and 225 Kg/ha/Yr (kilogram per hectare per year) were used. A randomized complete block design was applied and the sample clone was Tea Research Foundation of Kenya (TRFK) 6/8. The samples, composed of two leaves and a bud, were randomly picked, dried and ground into powder. Each sample was heated to ash in a muffle furnace, cooled and digested using 50% double acid of HNO₃ and HCl with H₂O₂. Desorption was done using HCl and samples allowed to settle before being aspirated into an Inductively Coupled Plasma - Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OPS). They were reweighed and digested for determination of total percentage nitrogen.; This was followed by distillation before titration with ammonium borate solution and HCl. Data analysis was done using MSTAT statistical package. The results revealed that the percentage accumulation of elements was highest when blended fertilizer was applied at a lower rate of 75 Kg N/Ha/Yr. compared to standard compounded fertilizer, which required higher rates of up to 225 Kg N/Ha/Yr. for accumulation of nutrients. Blended fertilizer was therefore found to be more economical and highly yielding than Standard compounded fertilizer, as a lower rate of application still led to higher accumulation of elements which is directly proportional to higher yield and quality in tea.

Environmental and social sustainability of the tea industry in the wake of global market challenges: a case study in Sri Lanka

The tea industry is one of the main export earners of Sri Lanka with over 150 years of history. It faces severe threats to sustainability due to contamination issues, low productivity, yield drop, climate changes, labour shortage, internal migration of workforce etc. This study focuses on examining the environmental and social impacts of Sri Lankan tea processing industry to withstand global market challenges. The environmental impacts of tea processing were analysed using life cycle assessment techniques, while social impacts were evaluated by UNEP framework on social life cycle assessment. The fieldwork was carried out in one of the tea plantation companies located at multiple areas, within and external to the tea processing needs improvements in terms of environmental and social sustainability. Furthermore, the selected plantation company is lagging behind environmental sustainability when compared to the reference factory of Tea Research Institute Sri Lanka. Recommendations are provided to mitigate environmental and social hotspots identified in the study.

Influence of Organic Enriched Manure and Inorganic Fertilizers on Plant Physiological Processes of Kenyan Tea Clone

Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) is one of the most popular beverages consumed in the world and Kenya is the leading exporter in Africa and only 3rd worldwide after China and India. Nutrient deficiency in soils and poor fertilization are possibly two reasons for low yields and quality of tea. The use of organic matter and mineral fertilizers has been proved to be a sound soil amendment and fertility management strategy. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the possibility of using readily available organic manures in combination of inorganic fertilizers on the physiological processes of tea clones in Kenya. The study was conducted within Timbilil estate, KALRO- Tea Research Institute in Kericho County on variety clone TRFK31/8. It was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and replicated three times. There were 14 treatments that randomly assigned in each block. Data on tea response was determined from photosynthesis rate, transpiration rate and stomatal conductance then recorded and analyzed using GenStat Version 15.1. There were significant differences between the treatments on the transpiration rate, stomatal conductance and the photosynthetic rate in both seasons for all the months recorded. The transpiration rate was highest during the wet season in the months of June, July and August while lower transpiration rates were recorded during the dry season in the months of December, January and February with 0.1 g m−2 s−1 transpiration rates recorded in several treatments in the month of February. Stomatal conductance, photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate were higher where NH4+ was introduced through the organic manure in all the seasons and therefore confirms that it is highly important to incorporate soil amendments with higher organic matter in tea production in Kenya.

Assessment of genetic diversity, population structure, and phylogenetic relationships among the Northeast Indian and South Indian commercially released tea cultivars using TE-AFLP markers

Commercially cultivated tea clones from Northeast and Southern India were analyzed using TE-AFLP markers. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and structure analysis showed high genetic variance (74%) within five distinct populations. This study also confirmed that Assam and UPASI (Nilgiri) tea clones have originated from two different tea populations introduced from imported China tea seeds by British. We evaluated the genetic variation and population structure in 30 tea clones of Tea Research Association (TRA), Tocklai Experimental station (Tockali ES), Jorhat, from North Eastern India and 30 clones of United Planters Association of South India (UPASI), Valparai, from South-India, released for commercial plantations and four C. japonica accessions (Total 64) used as outliers using Three Endonuclease-AFLP markers. Six primer combinations were selected from the best 10 primer combinations that were used on a set of 24 tea accessions as a standardization procedure. Dendrograms were constructed by using Jaccard’s similarity coefficient and Unweighted Pair Group Method of Arithmetic Averages (UPGMA) clustering method based on high coefficient correlation ratios obtained. High level of genetic diversity and clustering of accessions according to morphological proximity was established with minor aberrations. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed highest genetic variance (79%) within five populations whereas the lowest variance (21%) was found among populations. These values change to the highest 87% and the lowest 13% when Camellia japonica accessions were removed from the analysis. Population structure analyses were performed to establish the genetic diversity and exact type each clones vis-a-vis to their molecular and morphological characteristics at present. Attempts were made to find out the population structure of Northeast and Southern India tea germplasm with their relatedness to existing morphological type. These analyses confirmed that all tea clones were genetically diverse and grouped based on their morphological characteristics and geographic regions.

Pale green mutant analyses reveal the importance of CsGLKs in chloroplast developmental regulation and their effects on flavonoid biosynthesis in tea plant

Tea cultivars with leaf color variation have attracted increasing attention in tea production and research due to their unusual appearances and appealing flavors. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this variation is little known due to the unavailability of genetic transformation and a highly complex genome. Here, a natural tea plant mutant producing pale green branches (pgb) was discovered and characterized. Ultrastructural and biochemical analyses showed that the leaves of the pgb mutant had defective chloroplast structure and significantly lower pigment content than the normal control. Comprehensive expression detection of chloroplast-development-related genes further indicated that a significant downregulation of CsGLKs in the pgb mutant likely caused the chloroplast defect. Transcriptome analyses and polyphenolic compound determination highlighted a tight correlation between photosynthesis and secondary metabolite biosynthesis in tea plant. These results provide useful information illuminating the mechanism of chloroplast development and leaf color variation in tea plant.

Optimized sequencing depth and de novo assembler for deeply reconstructing the transcriptome of the tea plant, an economically important plant species

BackgroundTea is the oldest and among the world’s most popular non-alcoholic beverages, which has important economic, health and cultural values. Tea is commonly produced from the leaves of tea plants (Camellia sinensis), which belong to the genus Camellia of family Theaceae. In the last decade, many studies have generated the transcriptomes of tea plants at different developmental stages or under abiotic and/or biotic stresses to investigate the genetic basis of secondary metabolites that determine tea quality. However, these results exhibited large differences, particularly in the total number of reconstructed transcripts and the quality of the assembled transcriptomes. These differences largely result from limited knowledge regarding the optimized sequencing depth and assembler for transcriptome assembly of structurally complex plant species genomes.ResultsWe employed different amounts of RNA-sequencing data, ranging from 4 to 84 Gb, to assemble the tea plant transcriptome using five well-known and representative transcript assemblers. Although the total number of assembled transcripts increased with increasing sequencing data, the proportion of unassembled transcripts became saturated as revealed by plant BUSCO datasets. Among the five representative assemblers, the Bridger package shows the best performance in both assembly completeness and accuracy as evaluated by the BUSCO datasets and genome alignment. In addition, we showed that Bridger and BinPacker harbored the shortest runtimes followed by SOAPdenovo and Trans-ABySS.ConclusionsThe present study compares the performance of five representative transcript assemblers and investigates the key factors that affect the assembly quality of the transcriptome of the tea plants. This study will be of significance in helping the tea research community obtain better sequencing and assembly of tea plant transcriptomes under conditions of interest and may thus help to answer major biological questions currently facing the tea industry.

Quality Green Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Clones Marked through Novel Traits

Tea clones and seed varieties released from Tocklai Tea Research Institutes are suitable primarily for manufacturing black tea (CTC/orthodox) while green tea manufactured from these clones are poor in quality. This led to identifying germplasm suitable for manufacturing green tea of high quality. Physiological parameters on net photosynthesis, transpiration, stomatal conductance, water-use efficiency, leaf temperature, and carboxylation efficiency of six selected germplasm (DH 1 and 2, DH 3 and 4, DH 5 and 6, DL 13, DL 25, and DL 39) were measured in first flush, second flush, rain flush, and autumn flush. Seasonal Yield, biochemical (L-theanine to total polyphenol ratio), and taster’s score were compared among seasons. Two protocols were used for green tea manufacturing, i.e., roasting and steaming. Significant differences in net photosynthesis (pn), stomatal conductance (gs), carboxylation efficiency (ci/ca), and yield were observed between flushes. Among the six test clones, the L-theanine to total polyphenol ratio found was highest in DH 5 and 6 in the roasting method. Structural and cluster analysis revealed that the DH clones genotypically occupied the same position as that of the popular green tea clone Longjing 43 of China and Yabukita of Japan, indicating suitability of these germplasm to develop new green tea clones. Clones DH 5 and 6 are suitable for green tea manufacturing and they can be released to the industry as new green tea clones. As far as manufacturing protocol is concerned, the roasting method of tea manufacturing was found superior over steaming.

Influence of Factor-Magnitude on Occupational Stress Among Agricultural Research Sector Employees in Kenya

Job dissatisfaction is inevitable in any work environment. The present study explored influence of factor-magnitude on occupational stress among agricultural research sector employees in Kenya. The study was carried out during the restructuring period of the agricultural research institutes in Kenya between 2013 and 2016. The restructuring resulted in the formation of the Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization through the dissolution of four agricultural research institutes and merger of their operations and functions. The former institutes were: Coffee Research Foundation, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Sugar Research Foundation, and Tea Research Foundation. The 2922 employees of the organization were disillusioned during the four years of restructuring due to the loss of upkeep allowances among other benefits. A structured questionnaire was administered to 352 randomly selected employees in a survey carried out in 2016&amp;ndash;2017. The study found that poor working conditions, effort-reward imbalance, job psychological distress, and lack of work motivation had significant (p &amp;lt; 0.05) effects on occupational stress. It was concluded that the on-going structural and remuneration changes would result in higher levels of job satisfaction and reduction in occupational stress among employees.