Analysis of Environmental Factors Affecting the Chemical Constituents of the First Crops of Tea at Local Adaptability Test with Some Missing Values

Abstract

Environmental and varietal differences in chemical constituents were analyzed using the first crops of 16 tea cultivars, which were used for the local adaptability test at 10 domestic sites in 1988 and 1989. The contents of total nitrogen, total free amino acids, tannin and caffeine in the first crops of tea were analyzed by near-infrared reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy. Nineteen missing values were estimated prior to two-way factorial analysis. Differences between cultivars and between locations or years were significant at the 1% level for the contents of all chemical constituent in the first crop. Total variance was divided into genotypic variance (σg²), local or yearly variance (σy²) and error variance (σé²). The genotypic variance in total nitrogen, caffeine, total free amino acids and tannin accounted for 21.5, 33.4, 14.6 and 25.9% of total variance, respectively. The contribution of genotypic effects on the chemical constituents of the first crops was smaller than that of environmental effects. The genotypic effect on the caffeine content was larger than that on the other constituent contents.