• Some 1.5 million tea bushes have dried up and need to be replaced.
• Nyeri county has 56 million tea bushes.
Image: EUTYCAS MUCHIRI
Old tea varieties, some planted in 1950 and 1960s, are the major reason for low tea production in Nyeri, a KTDA official has said.
Acting Kenya Tea Development Agency regional manager Antony Mureithi on Thursday said some tea bushes have dried up and died because of diseases or harsh weather conditions. Some 1.5 million tea bushes have dried up and need to be replaced. The county has 56 million tea bushes, he said.
Mureithi advised farmers to gradually replace the aging tea bushes with new varieties to boost production. He said old bushes have led to low revenue for farmers.
Both KTDA and the county government rooted for gradual replacement to ensure regular supply of tea to factories throughout the year.
Uprooting the bushes at once will hurt tea supply to factories and farmers’ earnings, they said.
Mureithi suggested they come up with a programme, where a third of tea bushes in a particular farm is cleared and replaced with improved varieties.
“Why we want to replace this, is because of low production, diseases and the need to introduce high production clones,” he said.
He spoke during the distribution of 50,000 tea seedlings to farmers in Othaya. Each of the five factories in the county got 10,000 bushes. Governor Mutahi Kahiga was the chief guest.
The new clones are able to produce up to three kilogrammes per bush per year, as opposed to the old varieties which only produce slightly over a kilogramme per tree. This will triple production, with the more than 50 million new tea bushes expected to produce 150 million kilogrammes per year.
Currently, the average green tea production in the county is 62 million kilos per year.
“We also expect that these clones will be diseases and pest resistant. They will also withstand harsh weather conditions like drought,” Mureithi said.
He said tea extension services assistants and field services coordinators will go to farms and help farmers plant and monitor the seedlings as they grow.
Governor Kahiga said farmers should phase out the old varieties of phases to ensure that supply of green tea in factories and their earning are not affected.
“I call on the factories directors and the county government officials to ensure they come up with a programme to replace the 56 million trees,” the county chief said.
Kahiga proposed that every factory establishes a tree nursery and replace about one million tree bushes annually to achieve the desired transformation.