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Tea plantations in the Nilgiris, the largest tea growing district in South India, have informed the Tea Board that production in October was up 12.84 per cent as compared with that of October 2017.
Good rainfall and adequate hours of sunshine led to better harvest.
Consequently, plantation companies have reported to Tea Board that production in October rose to 1.67 million kg (mkg) (1.48 mkg). This was 15.97 per cent more than the normal 1.44 mkg, which is measured by the five-year mean for the month..
The cumulative production in the ten months of the current calendar was 13.45 mkg against 13.34 mkg in January-October 2017, posting a marginal gain of 0.82 per cent. But 8.12 per cent more than the normal of 12.44 mkg as measured by the five-year mean for the ten months.
The delay in the arrival of North East monsoon also helped the production, especially in November.
“Even as we are stepping into December, the North East monsoon has not set in with usual intensity. There have been periodical showers along with sunshine. Consequently, there is no frost attack so far and we anticipate only lesser impact of frost this winter”, R Rajkumar, Chairman, The Nilgiri Planters’ Association, told BusinessLine .
Given the weather condition, blister blight disease did not occur. This also means that the incidence of red spider attack will be less or not at all. So, we have not had to spray any chemicals. “Consequently, our teas are clean without any fungicide or pesticide residue”, he said.
“The result is that we are receiving orders from health-conscious Japan at premium price for the teas we now manufacture”, said Rajkumar who is also Group Manager of Glenworth Estate, which runs the Glendale Group of tea estates. “We anticipate 13 to 15 per cent increase in production in November because of this weather”, he said.
Avataa Beverages’ Director G Udayakumar said, “We have started plucking tender single-leaf-and-a-bud from our Billimalai Estate at 6,400 feet above sea level and are manufacturing winter speciality teas.
“Teas produced with the support of this weather fetch premium price in the market, especially abroad. In the past, some of our teas produced in similar weather conditions had fetched ₹11,550 a kg in the auctions”, he said.
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