Assam Jat — The Lost Seed
By Raj Barooh, Founder Director — Rujani Tea
In 2008, I got a call from Dr S. K. Pathak, who was working at the Tocklai Tea Research Institute (Tocklai), in Jorhat, Assam. He wanted to know if our tea farm, Aideobarie had any 100-year old tea plants that were growing from the original Betjan seeds. Betjan is one of the tea seed varieties unique to Assam, and as it happened, about 10% of Aidebarie had these plants.
The rest of the estate, like most of Assam, was populated with clonal tea plants. And we had stopped using seeds to propagate new plants, instead choosing vegetative propagation from a leaf and stem cutting. The clone of choice, for most tea farms in Assam, is the first Tocklai clone, TV1, which produces an excellent and consistent quality CTC tea. Tocklai released the TV1 clone in 1949, and since then, we have replanted most of our old tea fields with it. The Indian government even gives tea farms like ours an incentive in the form of a subsidy to uproot the senile plants and preferentially replace them with clones or new bi-clonal seed jats developed by Tocklai. In the process, we lost the original Assamica jat plants growing from the old Assam seed varieties.
Dr Pathak was concerned about two things: The loss of heterogeneous character in the seeds having a vast gene pool; and the homogeneity by propagating a limited number of clones, that would be genetically alike.
Imagine, of 300,000 hectares of land, planted with tea in Assam, there could be about 50,000 that have the same TV1 and a few other clones, with limited gene pools. Dr Pathak believes that by bringing back the old seed jats of Assam, we can maintain the quality of Assam tea for generations to come.
On his advice, we decided to medium prune some selected good quality tea bushes in an old Betjan seed jat section of the garden. We allowed them to grow, and in about three years, they bore tea seeds that we collected and could use in the seed barie. It takes about eight years to see the results in the field, and not every tea producer in Assam is willing to invest that kind of time.
But it is in equal parts essential and worth the investment of time, because these plants are sturdy, tolerant to the local environment, and grow very well. They are a replica of any old Assam jat known for its high-quality tea.
For our customers, the return of the Assamica jat plant translates to a tea that has excellent depth of body and flavour, qualities that made Assam teas famous all those decades ago. We make our Assamica Premium whole leaf black tea with the same tea plants.
We now get nearly 10,000 seeds a year from our tea trees developed in this old Betjan section. These are being returned to the field, steadily, as we move towards creating that balance between seed grown, clonal and bi-clonal hybrids at Aideobarie, so that our teas embody the best of Assam, in the most sustainable way possible.
Dr Pathak retired from Tocklai in 2017 as its Deputy Director, but continues to work with the tea industry, as a consultant to several tea companies in northeast India. His work on tea seeds continues.
Last week, Dr Pathak was at Aideobarie to see how our Betjan poly-parent section was doing. We had a quick Q&A with him on this subject. If you would like to learn more about how we are promoting the old seed varieties, the video below should interest you.
Transcript:
Raj: This is an attempt to bring back the original seed jats of Assam which used to give very specific Assam characteristics. How are we doing this?
Dr Pathak: First of all, we will attempt to understand the Assamica jat of the tea plant.
In Assam, tea plantations were started by the British. Initially, they tried some seeds collected from China, the China variety with small leaves, multi-stemmed collars. By this time, Assam tea had been discovered in the natural forest of Assam right from Sadiya to Gabru Parbat in Upper Assam. Subsequently, it was observed that seeds from the China variety were not doing well in Assam. And the production of tea from indigenous Assam type tea — broadleaf, big, single collars — began as early as 1836. The first tea invoice of eight chests from Assam type tea were sent to London tea auction in the year 1838, which was the momentous occasion to determine future planting material of tea and now more tea is produced globally from Assam type tea than China type. The initial gardens were cultivated with seeds from tea trees growing wild in the forest, particularly from Upper Assam.
After clearing the forest areas, these seeds were sown and the initial plantations came up. With bigger leaves, bigger shoots, with spreading frames compared with China varieties- they started growing well in Assam’s environment. More seeds were needed to expand to other areas. And so, they started seed baries growing the parent seed plants at a certain distance in isolated areas and harvesting seeds produced by such tea trees. After 3–4 years they started giving fruits and tea seeds. Those tea seeds were collected and used in plantations. Depending on different areas, different gardens, different varieties, they were named differently, like Betjan, Kharijan, Tingamara, Dagri Manipuri etc. There were so many varieties developed those days. Most initial cultivation was with the seeds of these Assam varieties. These were poly-parent seed varieties as the mother seed trees of a seed garden were grown from seed populations, which were genetically different.
Raj: On your advice, we have tea trees here, developed from old tea bushes under plucking. We have certain seeds ready for germination in winter. Can you explain this experiment?
Dr Pathak: The TTRI, Tocklai has developed some biclonal or bi-parent seed varieties which have seeds from two-parent clones. The seeds coming from them, after crossing — the F1 generation — are hybrid seeds. There are some biclonal seed baries. Although good in quality and yield, they are different from clonal plants and the original Assam poly parent seed varieties. Subsequently, the original seed varieties were discontinued. Hence, we had to do something to retain the original seed varieties so that we can maintain the character of Assam tea.
About 10–12 years ago, I thought that if in a particular old Assam seed jat sections, presently under plucking, we can select some good bushes depending on the desired characters at 4–5 m apart, medium prune them at a low level (45 cm) removing knots and congestions in frames and allow them to grow freely, then they will develop into trees and start giving fruits and seeds. Those seeds will be from poly parent seed baries like the same old Assam type jat, in which it is done and will bear the same or even better character than the earlier population as the parents were selected having good characters. Thus we are developing the poly-parent seed baries from the original seed population of a Betjan or any other old Assam varieties known for its quality. The parents are genetically different from each other, that’s why these are poly-parent seed baries, like the old days. In this way we are bringing back the old seed jats of Assam to maintain Assam tea quality.
In Aideobarie, this is a Betjan poly parent seed barie that we started 5–6 years ago. You can see some flower buds are developing now. They take a long time, these will flower in October/ November and seeds will be available only next October/ November. Some seed capsules here from last year flowers are about to mature. These will be harvested in November/ December this year. You can open and see the seed inside. This is a tea seed.
These flower buds will produce similar seeds in one and half years. The seeds harvested from the seed baries, grown in the nursery and planted on the fields, will give us the same Betjan seed section.
We are recovering the same characteristics of the original seed jat with these seeds. We are bringing back those old Assam seed varieties, so that we can maintain the characters of Assam tea, which is in danger of being lost.
Raj: Dr Pathak, we talk about sustainability in the tea industry in Assam. It’s around 200 years now and you will agree that there are many new challenges we are seeing. Like climate change, we have never experienced this kind of weather, of 40 degrees C. And degeneration of the soil. Will these Assamica seed bushes help in the sustainability of the tea industry?
Dr Pathak: Seed varieties are genetically different. That’s why they have the advantage to cope with any adverse situations. Suppose there’s a pest attack or insect attack, in case of clones, which is a multiplication of a single plant and genetically alike, makes all the population equally susceptible to that disease or pest. In the case of plants growing from seeds, being each plant genetically different, they have more tolerance or adaptability to such adverse situations. They may withstand climate change or any adverse situations better. But I will not say that clones are weak or inferior to seeds. Some clones are hardy and can withstand adverse situations. But due to the genetic variations, seed has some advantage. Plus these plants have a single tap root system, which can go straight, little deeper than the clone, which gives them some advantages to overcome drought.
Along with the clones, there should be a balance of seed grown from old Assam seed jat and also from Biclonal seed jats suitable to that area with a clone: seed ratio 50:50. Biclonal and poly-parent varieties can also be included as they will have wider adaptability to adverse situations.
Raj: Rujani Tea’s main endeavour today is to make specialty tea. Would you agree that Assam has been too concentrated on CTC since the 1950s and we have let go of the Assam jat? How will this propagation help in Rujani’s specialty movement and in the quality of the teas we plan to make?
Dr Pathak: Earlier only poly parent seed varieties were available. A specific type of orthodox tea was made, special to Assam. In between our attention was diverted to CTC, but now gardens are returning back to make orthodox, because there is a demand for it. This attempt to bring the old seed varieties definitely will help bring back the original Assam characters.
Continue watching this series for more on this subject of sustainable tea plantattion.
