ASSESSMENT OF MECHANICAL HARVESTING OF TEA AND ITS VIABILITY FOR USE IN KENYA

Abstract

Harvesting of tea (Camellia sinensis) involves the removal of the tender, growing shoots from the surface of the tea bush. Two processes exist for harvesting tea: coarse plucking and fine plucking. In fine picking only a bud and the second and third leaves are picked while for the coarse plucking more leaves are picked with the bud. For a long time tea harvesting has been carried out by hand but in the recent years most tea producing countries including India, Japan, China and Papua New Guinea have adopted the use of machines. A review of published research work indicates that chemical quality parameters of black tea change with the method of harvesting. Hand-plucked teas are rich in their green-leaf biochemical precursors and have higher contents of made-tea quality constituents than machine-plucked teas. Quality deterioration is mainly due to mechanical injury and non-selective plucking with shear-harvesting. The use of machines increases the plucking average with a net decrease in cost of production compared to hand plucking. An economic analysis carried out in this study proved that mechanized harvesting of tea is viable for adoption in most Kenyan plantations. To avoid quality deterioration, it is recommended that mechanized tea harvesting should be undertaken mainly during the peak production period.