Agriculture and Environment: Tea

Better Management Practices: Promote Crop Diversity

The number of commercially viable plant species and varieties cultivated for human use is declining each year.

An important conservation strategy, particularly with a long-lived plant like tea, would be to save a small patch of 50 to 100 bushes of older varieties of tea in any area that is targeted for replanting.

This will save genetic material that may be useful for future tea propagation and production (e.g., to develop varieties that are resistant to diseases that become problems in the future).