Remote Sensing Applications to Infer Yield of Tea in a Part of Sri Lanka
Crop yields in any location and any species are subject to many dynamic factors of production which are biotic and abiotic. No two agro ecosystems are identical. Here an effort is made to infer the yield of tea in a part of Sri Lanka based on conventional
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Remote Sensing Applications to Infer Yield of Tea in a Part of Sri Lanka Saumitra Mukherjee, Jayasekara Balasuriya, Don Aruna, Pradeep Kumara and Chander Kumar Singh
1 Introduction Crop yields in any location and any species are subject to many dynamic factors of production which are biotic and abiotic. No two agro ecosystems are identical. Here an effort is made to infer the yield of tea in a part of Sri Lanka based on conventional and new techniques of remote sensing applications. Sri Lanka is an agriculture-based country and the sector shares about 12 % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Paddy, coconut, tea and rubber plantations are the major crops which cover major portion of the agricultural lands. Rice, which is the staple food, is cultivated in every part of the country during the maha (rabi) season (September to March). However in yala (kharif) season (April to August), it is limited due to unavailability of canal water. Based on ecological parameters such as rainfall, soil type and topography, Sri Lanka is divided into three major agro-ecological zones namely wet zone, intermediate zone and dry zone (Panabokke 1996). The wet zone is in the southwest quarter of the island where annual rainfall is received during the southwest monsoon period as well as the two inter-monsoon periods, totalling about 3500 mm per year (Samarasinghe 2003). Coconut plantations are confined to low lands in wet and intermediate zones and rubber is primarily in the wet zone. In Sri Lanka, tea plants are grown as a rain-fed perennial crop which cover approximately 222,000 ha of land. It is the foremost plantation crop which is extensively growing in hill country. However, tea is grown at the altitude range of 0–2,500 m amsl, which fulfils the required minimum rainfall of 1,200 mm per year, but 2,500–3,000 mm per year is considered as optimum (Carr 1972; Squire and
S. Mukherjee () · J. Balasuriya · D. Aruna · P. Kumara · C. Kumar Singh Remote Sensing Applications Laboratory, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110067, India e-mail: [email protected] N. Tuteja, S. S. Gill (eds.), Crop Improvement Under Adverse Conditions, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4633-0_4, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
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Callander 1981; Watson 1986). Therefore, tea plantations are distributed in up, mid and low-country regions, belonging to wet and intermediate zones. Tea production is classified based on its growing regions, such as high, medium and low-grown tea. However, the quality or flavour of each category is unique. Most distinguishable up country tea is characterized by its flavour and aroma while lowgrown tea is identical for its strength and colour. In terms of production, low-grown tea dominated over others (173.2 million kg in 2009) followed by high (72.3 million kg) and medium (44.3 million kg) grown tea. Economically, the tea sector is important and contributes about 1 % to the GDP. However, the present average yield of 1,550 kg per hect
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