2012 Volume 56 Issue 2 Pages 71-73
Heptophylla picea Motschulsky is one of the important pests of tea plants, and depression in the growth of new shoots of first crop of tea is caused by larval root feeding by this species. In April 2008, we found that the amount of damage caused on new tea shoots in fields where irrigation was applied during the previous summer was noticeably lesser than that in the fields without irrigation. In laboratory experiments, the survival rates of the young H. picea larvae were not affected by soil moisture. These results suggested that irrigation promotes plant vigor of tea, thus reducing the damage induced by pests.
