Impact of Soil Rehabilitation of Tea Soils and Development of an Index

NPSN Bandara1*, UP Abeysekara1, N Navaratna2, AK Prematunga2

MGS Liyanage1, EWTP Prematunga1, DW Vithana1
GP Guneratna3, KG Prematilaka4
1*
Agronomy Division, Tea Research Institute, Ratnapura, Sri Lanka
(Corresponding author, Email: shyamantha.bandara@yahoo.com)
2
Entomology Division, Tea Research Institute, Talawakelle, Sri Lanka
3
Soil & Plant Nutrient Division, Tea Research Institute, Talawakelle, Sri Lanka
4
Uva-Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, Badulla, Sri Lanka

Abstract
A study was undertaken to evaluate four soil parameters, soil bulk density, available

water content, organic carbon content and microbial biomass content, in

rehabilitated field and adjacent old tea field in 40 tea estates, representing all tea

growing areas of Sri Lanka. While BD showed significant reduction after planting

grasses, AWC, MBC and C showed significant increase.

A soil quality index (SQI) was developed after standardization of above parameters

between 0-10 and using the following formula

SQI=0.36 BD +0.14 AWC+ 0.34 C+ 0.16 MBC

Accordingly, minimum SQI requirement for skipping the grass planting was

proposed as 5.0 fpr Low elevation, 6.0 for Mid elevations and 7.0 for Uva and Up

elevations in tea growing regions of Sri Lanka. This study proved the beneficial

effects of grass planting prior to replanting and developed a standard index to

evaluate the soil fertility.

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Introduction
Tea cultivation is a major economic growth contributor and most significant agriculture

commodity in Sri Lankan economy (Oxford Business Group 2016). Sri Lanka’s tea production

is now dominated by some 400,000 small scale farmers. Tea small holder sector holds the

largest production percentage (nearly 70%) of Sri Lana tea industry (Ministry of Plantation

Industries 2013). Many researchers have shown that decreasing productivity continuously make

Sri Lanka tea industry less market competitive globally (Ganewatta and Edwards 2000, Thushara

2015, Nilanthi 2016, Wekumbura, Mohotti et al. 2017) and as a result competing countries gain

the market advantage (Thushara 2015). Identified one strategy to counter the declining

productivity is to maintain an annual replanting rate of 2%. Low replanting rate is an issue

affecting both small holder and large corporate sector (Illukpitiya, Shanmugaratnam et al. 2004).

The issue is more affecting the small holder tea growing sector, where replanting rate sometimes

fell below 1% (TSHDA 2015).

Soil rehabilitation prior to replanting is a recommended practice in tea cultivation (Zoysa 2008).

As the rehabilitation technique, Guatemala (Tripsacum laxum) or Mana (Cymbopogon

confertiflorus) is planted for 18-24 months. However, long period of without farm income, (up

to 4-5 years), is considered to be a negative factor for replanting tea fields (IFAD 2015). As a

result, there are some demands for skipping the soil rehabilitation process, prior to replanting for

the small holder sector. However, long term productivity analysis has shown that non-

rehabilitated tea fields become economically unproductive within few years (Dissanayake,

Udugama et al. 2013)

Hence, there was a need evaluate the impact of soil rehabilitation in tea lands and to develop a

mechanism to identify fertile tea lands, where direct planting can be practised without soil

2
rehabilitation. after analyzing the soil characters of different soil groups, belongs to different

agro-ecological regions of tea growing areas , an index, referred as “Soil Quality Index” has been

prepared by Prematilaka et al,(2011) to identify the fertility status of tea lands.

Material and Methods

Soil parameters of soil dry bulk density-BD( g/cm-3), Available water holding content-AWC

(mm/30cm), Organic carbon-C(%) and microbial biomass content-MBC (µg/g of soil) of 40 tea

estates, belongs to all elevations, soil groups and agro-ecological regions. Estates were selected

according to elevational categorization of tea estates in Sri Lanka (Dissanayake, Wijewardena et

al. 1999, Zoysa 2008).

Table 1: Number of tea estates selected for each elevation/region for soil sampling

Elevation/regio Altitude (m amsl) No of estates

n
Low 0-600 14
Mid 600-1200 6
Up >1200 9
Uva* >600 9
* Uva region tea fields belongs to both Mid and Up elevations. Since this is the only region which receives
majority of rainfall from North East monsoon, this region is categorized separately (Watson 1986)

Samples were taken from rehabilitated plots (Mana or Guatemala grass planted for

approximately 2 years) and very adjacent old seedling or VP tea field. The tea fields were in the

verge of uprooting. Undisturbed soil core samples were obtained from 0-10, 10-20 & 20-30cm

depths separately for the estimation of BD & AWC. OC and MBC were sampled at 0-15 & 15-

30cm depths. BD was calculated after oven drying the samples for 100 0C overnight. AWC was

measured using the hanging water column method. Walkley & Black method was used to

measure the OC and chloroform fumigation method was used to measure the MBC (Vance,

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Brookes et al. 1987, Gonzalez-Quiñones, Stockdale et al. 2011). Six sample points each were

analysed from grass planted field and old tea field and average values were taken for calculation.

Based on the soil parameter values, scores were given according to following table to standardize

the data for applying to SQI calculation (Table 2).

Table 2: Scores given for each soil parameter based on it's value

Bulk Density Available Water Microbial Biomass

Organic Carbon (%)
(g/cm-3) Content (mm/30cm) Content (µg/g of soil)
Value Score Value Score Value Score Value Score
0.7-1.0 10 60-70 9-10 >5 10 300-400 10
1.0-1.2 9-10 50-60 8-9 4-5 8-10 250-300 8-10
1.2-1.3 7-9 40-50 7-8 3-4 6-8 200-250 7-8
1.3-1.4 5-7 30-40 6-7 2-3 4-6 150-200 5-7
1.4-1.5 3-5 20-30 3-6 1-2 2-4 100-150 3-5
1.5-1.6 1-3 10-20 1-3 0.6-1 0-2 50-100 1-3
>1.6 0 <10 0 <0.6 0 <50 0

Principal component analysis method was executed using the SAS University Edition and

obtained the following best fitted equation to calculate the soil quality index

SQI=0.36 BD +0.14 AWC+ 0.34 C+ 0.16 MBC

Results & Discussion

Pattern of the measured soil parameters in old tea fields, against the field elevation is given in

Figure 1 Accordingly, there is a weak negative relationship between BD and elevation and

weak positive relationship with AWC, OC and MBC with elevation.

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 1.7 70

Available water content (mm/30cm)

(a) (c)
1.6
60
Bulk density (g/cm3)

1.5
50
1.4

1.3 40

1.2
30
1.1

1.0 20
0 500 1000 1500 2000
(b)

M icrobial biomass content (g/ g soil)

3.5 1800
1600 Elevation (m amsl)
(d)
3.0
1400
Organic carbon (%)

2.5
1200
2.0 1000

1.5 800
600
1.0
400
0.5
200
0.0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 500 1000 1500 2000

Elevation (m amsl) Elevation (m amsl)

Figure 1: Relationship of BD, AWC, OC and MBC with elevation in tea fields

1. Dry Bulk Density

Difference in the BD among different elevations and tea growing regions were clearly seen

among results (Figure 2a). According to the graph, a clear negative relationship could be seen

with elevation and the BD even after soil rehabilitation process. The most significant reduction

of bulk density after growing grass for two years in the field was found in Uva region, where

grass planting reduced the BD by 10%. Reduction of the compactness is much lower in low

elevation tea growing areas, where grass planting was able to decrease BD only by 3%.

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 2. Available Water Content

Grass planting for a period of two years has improved the water retention of the soils

significantly in low elevations (14%) and Uva region (12%). However, soil rehabilitation has

been unable to improve the water retention of the soils in upper and mid elevation tea growing

areas of Sri Lanka.

3. Organic carbon percentage

Organic carbon content increases with the elevation of the tea field. Soil rehabilitation

significantly improved the organic carbon percentage in low and mid elevations and in

Uva region.

4. Microbial biomass content

Microbial biomass content of the soil increases with the elevation. Among different elevations

and regions, grass planting improved the MBC, except for up elevations. The highest gain of

32% increase of MBC was observed in Low elevation fields.

Grass planting for two-year period, known as soil rehabilitation contributed to improve the

measured soil parameters, as beneficial for plant growth. However, improvement of some of the

parameters, like AWC has an effect with elevation. Up country elevation (>1200m amsl) is the

least developed through soil rehabilitation with all measured parameters. However, OC and

MBC showed a 20% and 28% increase after soil rehabilitation. Lower improvement of the soil

parameters, in this elevation could be due to low temperature regimes associated in this elevation

(Watson and Zoysa 2008). Overall most significant improvements were seen from the increase

of OC (28%) and MBC (24%) after soil rehabilitation.

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 1.6
1.4 (a)
Bry bulk density (g/cm )
-3

1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Avialable water comntent (mm/30cm)

70
(b)
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
3.5
(c)
3.0
Organic carbon (%)

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
Microbial biomass content (g/g soil)

1400
Grass
1200 Old tea (d)
1000

800

600

400

200

0
Low Mid Up Uva

Elevation / region

Figure 2: Average soil parameters of bulk density(a), available water content(b), organic carbon
percentage (c) and microbial biomass content(d) according to different tea growing elevations/regions.

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SQI Calculation

The SQI value showed a positive linear relationship with elevation increase (R 2 = 0.46, for grass

fields and R2=0.49 for tea fields). Hence, it needs to introduce separate benchmark SQI levels

for different elevations. Accordingly, SQI value of 5.0 has been earmarked for benchmark SQI

for direct planting in Low elevations, 6.0 for Mid elevations and 7.0 for Up elevation & Uva

region.

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Grass
Tea
9

8
Soil Quality Index

2
0 500 1000 1500 2000

Elevation (m amsl)

Figure 3: Calculated soil quality index value for grass and tea fields with elevation. Continuous line
shows the trend line for grass fields and dash line shows the trend line for tea fields.

Application of the SQI for tea industry

Calculation of SQI for estimating tea field fertility for the decision making on direct planting

could have a positive impact on Sri Lanka tea industry sociological and economical terms.

According to the analysed data 10 put of 38 old tea fields were above the elevational bench

marks required for direct planting (Figure 3). Hence, the subsidy given for replanting could be

saved by about 26% due to the proper implementation of soil quality index.

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Conclusions:
The detailed experiment analyzing the rehabilitated and non-rehabilitated soils showed that,

beneficial effects of soil rehabilitation with grass planting can be visible in all tea growing

elevations/regions at different magnitudes. Hence this is a more sustainable method of

improving the poor quality tea soils which are highly erodible (Dissanayake, Wijewardena et al.

1999). However to improve the soil replanting rate and to solve the grower concern about the

long time taken for rehabilitation, measuring the soil quality index in given land can be used as

an alternative way of selecting lands for direct planting.

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to acknowledge the Tea Research Board of Sri Lanka for funding the research

work and the Managers and field staff of various estates providing assistant during field

operations.

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