INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRODUCTIVITY AND ABIOTIC FACTORS-AN INVESTIGATION IN REPRESENTATIVE DOOARS REGION TEA GARDENS OF WEST BENGAL

Dooars region comprises the northern part of West Bengal bounded by the Teesta river in west, Sankosh river and Assam in the east, the Kingdom of Bhutan in the north and Bangladesh in the south. Roughly the area is 130 km by 40 km and includes the districts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Coochbehar. Large areas of forest cover is interrupted with plenty of tea gardens which not only add boost in economy but also add socio cultural hotspot because of the fact that good number of tribal peoples inhabited in and around the tea garden who are the workers of the forest and tea garden. But now a day’s tea industry in this area is facing a major break due to less productivity in spite of taking all available precautions. Loppers are the chief culprit in this scenario. Moreover pest surveillance also depends on climatic condition more specifically different environmental abiotic factors. This paper addresses this vital issue. Here attempts are undertaken to understand effect of rainfall and temperature on productivity of tea. In this study Madhu Tea Estate is taken as control site as because since last 10 years it was lockout and proper maintenance such as pruning, irrigation and pesticide spraying is not at all being done. On the other hand Borodighi Tea garden and Chowafulli tea garden are selected as experimental sites where proper maintenance is being done. The Borodighi Tea garden and Chowafulli tea garden are situated in Jalpaiguri District. More specifically two experimental sites are in close proximity. Through MINITAB software version 18 analysis it has been found that both rainfall and temperature having positive correlation with productivity.