IJSRP, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013 Edition [ISSN 2250-3153]
Mrityunjay Choubey, R. Kumar, A. Chakraborty, J. S. Bisen , A.K.Singh, Mahipal Singh
Abstract:
The experiment was initiated at the experimental farm of Darjeeling Tea Research and Development Centre, Kurseong (Darjeeling) during 2010-11 and 2011-12 to study the performance by morphological characteristics of tea clones in the nursery through vegetative propagation. The ultimate objective was to screen out the best planting material having good establishment potential in the nursery. For morphological study, cuttings were obtained from the selected mother bushes of different Tea Estates of Darjeeling. The performance of tea clones was evaluated in respect of survival percentage, plant height, number of branches¬¬ per plant, shoot and root volume, number of leaves per plant. During the study it has been observed that morphological traits such as shoot length, root length, shoot- root volume, number of leaves and branches can be used to distinguish between the camellia species. The information on morphological diversity can also be used for future breeding programmes. In this study it has been found that the highest survival percentage was obtained from old chinery plant (96.53%), followed by CP-1(96.17%), B-157(95%) and T-78(94.63). The clone T-78 perform best in respect of shoot length (60.22cm), shoot volume (30.89cc), number of leaves (39.78) and branches per plant (7.33) respectively as compare to other clones.