Breeding techniques of improved Tea Variety

There are many methods to select excellent tea varieties, such as systematic selection, cross breeding, artificial breeding, introduction and domestication and so on.

(1) systematic seed selection: also known as single plant seed selection. According to the breeding goal, a good single plant is selected from the seed selection materials, and the first single plant is propagated asexually, and compared with the standard species and the original population species, the excellent and good ones are cultivated into new varieties for propagation and promotion.

Its steps: ① primary selection: according to the correlation between seed selection objectives and tea characters, select a number of excellent individual plants in the tea garden for observation; ② observation: this work must be carried out annually, mastered in the performance of different seasons, repeated for 2-4 years. At the same time, understand its fecundity; ⑤ strain comparison test: the asexual progeny of selected individual plant is called strain. The representative qualified varieties or local main varieties were used as the standard species and compared with the clones of the same age. The items compared and identified are quality, adaptability, yield, stress resistance, picking time, annual germination rounds, germination density and bud characteristics, etc. ⑥ is submitted for examination and approval. The improved varieties selected by strain comparison test and regional adaptability test can be submitted to the Provincial crop Variety approval Committee for examination and approval, and the cross-provincial improved varieties shall be submitted to the National crop Variety examination and approval Committee for examination and approval; ⑦ breeding and promotion: the improved varieties that have passed the examination and approval can be propagated and popularized.

(2) sexual hybrid breeding: tea plants with different heredity produce hybrid offspring through the combination of female and male cells, and the process of breeding and selecting to create new varieties is called tea sexual cross breeding. It is basically composed of three main links: hybridization, selection and asexual reproduction.

The main technical points are as follows: ① selects its parents correctly. The materials with distant kinship and different ecotypes were selected as parents, the comprehensive characters of parents should meet the requirements of breeding objectives, the florescence of parents should be close, and the female parents should have fruiting ability; ② should grasp the opportunity and operate carefully. The pollen is collected when the male parent flower is fully mature and will not bloom, and when the female parent flower is ready to bloom, gently peel off the petals, use a brush to open some male pollen and put it on the stigma of the female parent, immediately bagging and isolation; ③ strengthens the management after pollination: the bag can be removed 3-5 days after pollination. Stigma withered, calyx closed means that the ovary has been fertilized, attention should be paid to protect the young fruit from falling off; ④ careful cultivation and selection: after obtaining hybrid offspring seeds after sowing, individual plant selection and comparative tests must be carefully carried out in accordance with breeding objectives before they can be cultivated into new fine varieties; ⑤ application for examination and approval, breeding promotion: the improved varieties should be submitted for examination and approval in accordance with the relevant procedures, cutting propagation can be adopted. Special attention should be paid to the purity of seedlings to ensure the character of improved varieties.

In addition to the above breeding methods, domestic and foreign breeders have also adopted physical and chemical methods to obtain mutated mutation breeding and multiple sports species using modern bioengineering technology, and made new progress, which opened up a new way for the cultivation of fine tea varieties.