Author(s):

Arti Ghabru and RG Sud

Abstract: Climate change is impacting agro-ecosystems, crops, and farmer livelihoods in communities worldwide. Climate events in many areas are resulting in a decline in crop yields, the impact on crop quality is less acknowledged, yet it is critical for food systems that benefit both farmers and consumers through high-quality products. This study examines tea (Camellia sinensis), the worlds most widely consumed beverage after water, as a study system to measure effects of seasonal variability on crop functional quality. Seasonal variations of total polyphenols (TP) in the range: 205.518 to 113.719 g kg^-1, 269.529 to 140.210 g kg^-1 and 263.223 to 104.759 g kg^-1 and total catechins (TC) in the range of 110.209 to 40.904 g kg^-1, 174.774 to 31.069 g kg^-1 and 162.619 to 82.673 g kg^-1 in fresh shoots of Kangra local tea [Camellia sinensis (L) O Kuntze] cultivar collected at seven day intervals throughout the harvesting seasons during the year were significant. Summer and rainy flush season’s samples of fresh tea shoots had higher levels of TP and TC compared to first and winter flush seasons. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that mechanisms that induced seasonal variations in the levels of phenolic constituents of tea shoots may include one or all the weather parameters which varied markedly across harvesting seasons over the years under investigation.

Pages: 1553-1557  |  1283 Views  348 Downloads

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