Advances in Tea Agronomy
About This Book
Tea is big business. After water, tea is believed to be the most widely consumed beverage in the world. And yet, as productivity increases, the real price of tea declines while labour costs continue to rise. Tea remains a labour intensive industry. With a distinguished career spanning over 50 years and rich experience in diverse crops, Mike Carr is eminently qualified to indulge in an intelligent discourse on tea agronomy. In addition to a comprehensive review of the principal tea growing regions worldwide in terms of structure, productivity and principal constraints, he has attempted to question and seeks to find the associated experimental evidence needed to support current and future crop management practices. The book will assist all those involved in the tea industry to become creative thinkers and to question accepted practices. International in content, it will appeal to practitioners and students from tea growing countries worldwide.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-title page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface: It All Depends
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Karibuni!: Welcome to You All
- 2 The World of Tea: A Geriatric Problem
- 3 A Changing Climate: Stay Cool!
- 4 Taxonomic Delight: Only Plant the Best!
- 5 The Well-Bred Tea Bush: Developing High-Yielding Clones
- 6 Planting and Replanting: Who Ever Said This Was Simple?
- 7 Understanding the Growth Processes: Creating a Framework
- 8 Roots Exposed: Life Underground
- 9 We Are Only Growing Leaves: Source or Sink?
- 10 Plucks Shoots, and Leaves: Looking After the Children
- 11 Machine-Assisted Harvesting: The Need of the Hour
- Plates
- 12 Hidden Hunger and Intelligent Guesswork: We Can Only Build on What Has Gone Before
- 13 Pores for Thought: Gaseous Exchange
- 14 More Pores for Thought: The Answer Lies in the Soil
- 15 Water Productivity: More Crop per Drop
- 16 A Shady Business: Teas Need Trees
- 17 A Nice Cup of Tea: Is It Made in the Field or in the Factory?
- 18 Fair Trade?: Smallholders Are Beautiful
- 19 The Agronomistâs Report: A Synthesis
- 20 Support Services: How Sustainable Is Sustainability?
- Glossary
- References
- Further Reading
- Index