Recycling of tea garden weeds and pruning litters

Abstract

The growing concern for safer environment and good health has necessitated to reduce the dependency on chemical fertilizers, thereby, to increase the utilization of organic manure in tea cultivation. Organic manure besides adding nutrients not only improves structure and aggregate of soil but also its water holding capacity .It is essential to use organic manure having the same nutritional status and devoid of any heavy and other harmful elements. However, due to the use of different raw materials including industrial sewage etc, most of the organic manures available in the market are not safe. As such, tea planters have very limited choice. Alternatively, the estates should produce the required organic manure by using the raw materials available in and around the estate. This will ensure better quality control. Tea pruning litters and shade tree droppings annually produce about 5.0 t/ha of organic matter. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain the litters in tea sections due to certain economic reasons. Aerobic composting of organic matter takes sufficiently longer time. Anaerobic decomposition of pruning litters and weeds led to the isolation of 11 strains of fungi and 12 strains of bacteria. The strains were characterized on the basis of their colony behaviour and identified in collaboration with IMTECH, Chandigarh.

Composts produced by the microbial strains were found to contain 2 -3 times more nitrogen (2.02 -2.7%) and phosphorous (0.34 -0.38%) after 6 months of composting as compared to cow-dung (N: 0.5% and P: 0.12%); however, potash content was low. In artificial inoculation, a mixed broth of fungal and bacterial strains was found to be effective in composting tea pruning litter and weed.