Abstract
Because it takes more than six years from the transplanting of tea cuttings to the establishment of a mature tea field, it is desirable to shorten this period in tea production. The growth of young tea plants was proportionally enhanced by increasing the number of branches. In this study, therefore, we examined a method to increase the number of branches on tea cuttings and examined the growth after transplanting of the tea cuttings with different numbers of branches. Tea cuttings were planted in paper pots in June, grown in the nursery bed until March in the next year, and then transplanted to the tea field. The tea cuttings without pruning developed less than two branches. However, by pruning the new shoots of the tea cutting leaving five leaves on the cuttings in September, we succeeded in preparing the cuttings with more than seven branches before transplanting. The number of branches and the growth of young tea plants developed from the cuttings pruned as above were greater than those of the plants from the cuttings without pruning, resulting in a higher yield.
