Overview
- The UPASI Tea Research Foundation’s Regional Centre in Coonoor has issued a report warning that the current Super El Niño combined with long-term warming is creating unprecedented agronomic stress for tea on the Nilgiris plateau.
- Long-term observatory data cited in the report show roughly 0.5°C average warming, a higher frequency of dry days, more short-duration high-intensity rains, and an expanded reach of frost and hail damage across tea elevations.
- Because tea is harvested continuously as young shoots, small shifts in temperature, soil moisture, light and humidity are already shortening internodal growth, disrupting harvest timing and cutting yields while weakening long-term bush vigour.
- The report gives practical field recommendations for estates and smallholders, including strategic shade-tree planting (for example Gliricidia sepium), canopy optimisation, soil and water conservation works, pruning timed to vulnerability, strengthened pest surveillance, hardened nursery stock, mulch and targeted irrigation.
- Murugesan and UPASI urge rapid adoption of these measures to avoid short-term overharvest that would undermine future productivity and to protect the livelihoods tied to Nilgiris tea production.