Abstract
Tea is an important cash crop in Rwanda. It ranks the second largest source of foreign income after coffee. Tea productivity and quality of green leaves lead to the black tea quality and quantity. Tea green leaves quality and quantity are affected by many factors including length of harvesting interval. Since the tea cultivated in Rwanda the proper harvesting interval has never been determined while it should be necessary for further improvement of the quality of Rwanda tea. The objective of this research was to determine the effect of harvesting interval on both quantity and quality of tea. Four harvesting intervals (7, 10, 13 and 16 days) were tested in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. The experiment was conducted in season of 2014B at NYABIHU Tea Company on the clone 6/8 in industrial block II (BIIA) situated in hillside. Data were collected on four parameters: Production, quality, height of shoot and surface of leaves during three months from the beginning of February 2014 up to the beginning of May 2014. By using Genstat, the results from different harvesting intervals were showed that the mean of production of tea green leaves obtained varied between 0.62Kgs/12bushes and 0.50kg with 87.10%, and 59.67% of mean quality respectively. Analysis of variance shows that there were significant difference between the treatments with p value (P<0.001). The shoot height and leaf surface were increased and increase production. The results indicated that the appropriate plucking interval for quality and quantity of green leaves ranges between 10 and13days in NYABIHU tea company zone.
Keywords: Tea, green leaf, harvesting intervals, shoot, quality and quantity.