Abstract:
Total tea production in Sri Lanka has been declining due to yield reduction. Vegetatively
propagated tea cultivars that have a narrower genetic diversity compared to seedling tea
are extensively cultivated in the Passara region where prolonged drought conditions were
experienced over the past few decades. Further, there is a scarcity of suitable planting
materials and well-adapted teas in this area. However, there is high performing seedling
tea in the Passara region which is a good source to increase genetic diversity and gives a
comparatively high yield. This study was conducted to compare twenty-one of selected
high performing seedlings and extensively used vegetatively propagated cultivars in
selected tea estates, Passara for ten morphological traits. According to the analysis of
variance results, there was a significant difference between selected tea bushes from each
estate in consideration of the given quantitative morphological traits. Cluster analysis was
performed for all the considered characters to identify whether they are genetically
overlapped. A seedling labelled as GS4 from Gonakale estate has been clustered with TRI
2025 while GS2 and GS3 seedlings have been clustered together with TRI 2043.
Seedling VS1 from Varellapathna estate has been clustered together with TRI 2023 while
seedling VS3 has been clustered with CY9. None of the selected seedlings from Hopton
estate were clustered together with selected vegetatively propagated cultivars in the same
estate. Therefore, GS2, GS3, and GS4 seedlings from Gonakale estate
and VS1, VS3 seedlings from Varellapathna estate can be recommended to maintain as
mother bushes to obtain cuttings for nurseries and they can be used to increase the genetic
diversity of tea in Passara region.
Keywords: Genetic diversity, Morphological characters, Seedlings, Vegetatively
propagated tea cultivars
