Weeding is engraved in the Chinese farming genes. No matter what you want to plant in the field, the first thing to do is to weed first. Only by clearing the grass can other crops obtain sufficient living space and resources.
Similarly, in tea gardens, once the grass is removed completely, tea trees will have enough space to grow, and regional resources will be prioritized for tea trees to obtain. Only when the tea trees are fully fed can the yield increase.
Just, do we really need to clean up the grass in the tea garden? Based on our experience of traveling back and forth in various tea mountains, we have found that everyone’s attitude towards grass is really different.
There are friends who overly focus on grass and adopt a management approach of not growing a single blade of grass, hastily believing that all grass is competing with tea trees for nutrients and that not removing the grass completely is not enough.
It’s like your mom insists that you wear a pair of long johns before you go out when you feel cold. what? You’re not cold? No, I don’t want you to think, I want me to think.
Weeding in a ‘no grass grows’ style
Of course, there is also a wild release management mode where people love to take care of everything. It’s not until the tea season is approaching that they realize they have a tea mountain where the grass should be removed. So, before the tea season starts, they politely remove the grass that is too tall to be picked. Their greatest tenderness is not to disturb them during normal times
Whether it’s the management of wild release that doesn’t grow a blade of grass or the management that doesn’t care, it’s all about subtraction in the tea garden. It’s just a matter of diligence, but in addition to subtraction, there are also ways to achieve weed control through addition.
Is the ‘no grass growing’ weed control really feasible?
The representative of Ke gave an extreme case to describe the role of grass in maintaining ecology: some people choose to use extreme methods such as burning mountains to quickly promote the construction of tea gardens. This approach can reduce labor costs to a certain extent and also obtain a large amount of natural fertilizers such as plant ash.
This kind of operation may yield efficient and substantial resource feedback in the short term, but in the long run, it is a losing deal. We call this approach ‘draining the pond to catch fish’.
A mountain that was being cleared by chance on the highway
The first “bucket of gold” is water and soil loss. One of the important functions of vegetation is to maintain water and soil and reduce soil erosion. If it rains continuously in Mount Wuyi, nothing will be left.
Even without the erosion of heavy rain, the nutrient supply required for tea tree growth in the later stage will not keep up. This is because the extensive loss of vegetation between rows has led to the disappearance of the living space for microorganisms. These microorganisms can decompose and synthesize humus, and then convert it into nutrients to supply to tea trees.
Without the assistance of microorganisms, the ecological balance is disrupted, and this requires a very long recovery period to restore the already damaged ecological balance.
In addition to extreme methods such as setting fire to mountains, using banned herbicides can also achieve a similar effect of ‘no grass growing’.
Science representatives often hear people boasting that ‘our tea gardens do not use banned pesticides, they are absolutely safe and healthy’, and they are quite pleased with this management approach.
Faced with such words, representatives of science often can only remain silent, but their hearts are filled with resentment: Can you not use this? This is something you cannot use. Otherwise, can you guess why it is listed as a banned pesticide? It can’t be disabled because the effect is too good, right
But on the other hand, the ‘effect’ is indeed good. The main theme is to eliminate all evil and indiscriminately attack all creatures it touches, including but not limited to those who apply pesticides.
Sometimes, good luck can lead to hidden achievements: ‘The city gate caught fire and harmed the fish in the pond.’ The surrounding tea gardens lived in compliance with the law, but were also affected by the floating herbicide and joined forces. How unjustified is this?
The tea plantation vegetation in the distance, which has been treated with herbicides, appears yellowish
This is not an exaggeration by the scientific representative. In fact, there are also situations where many organically managed tea mountains suffer from the illegal use of banned pesticides in the surrounding areas. Even though they have not done anything themselves, they may be held responsible for excessive pesticide residues.
Compared to the outdated traditional concept of ‘no grass grows’, current tea garden management emphasizes more on’ controlling grass’ or ‘using grass to suppress grass’. Control the growth of malignant weeds and reduce their harm to tea gardens; Switching to planting beneficial green manure can improve the tea garden environment while maintaining ecological balance. For example, planting green manure between tea gardens.
Ge Teng: A malignant weed in tea gardens that seriously hinders the absorption of nutrients and sunlight by tea trees. Its vitality is relatively strong.
Intercropping green manure: You see clearly, I’m not it
Throughout history, representatives of science have been in a habitual mindset towards the grass in tea gardens, which is that it will definitely compete with tea trees for nutrients. It has always been done this way, hasn’t it?
When visiting the white tea production area, the representative heard a very fresh saying: “In the past, we had to weed, but now we have to plant grass
The owner of the mountain plantation who said this scattered a large amount of purple clover into the tea garden. The viewing effect of purple clover was excellent, even Teacher Y planted a large area in the front and back yards. In spring, the purple swayed in the wind, appearing very delicate in the dark green, dark green, and light green grass.
Ziyun Ying has strong growth ability, and you can almost see it in any place with soil. It can improve the soil structure of tea gardens and have nitrogen fixation and energy-saving effects. Moreover, Ziyun Ying’s root system is not well-developed, and even if it needs nutrients during the growth process, it cannot compete with tea trees.
Tea garden green manure: Purple Yunying
For example, planting rapeseed flowers and soybeans in Yanzi Nests also improves soil fertility and greatly reduces the growth space for weeds.
Rapeseed flowers: green manure in tea gardens. The picture shows the Yanzike Ecological Demonstration Tea Garden
When the green manure reaches its peak growth period, it can be harvested and directly buried to increase the source of organic fertilizer in the tea garden, or spread between rows to reduce the direct effects of rainwater and heat.
Although green manure also consumed tea garden resources to some extent, it was eventually backfilled on site and all rotted in one pot.
The weeding method of spreading the weeded grass back to the row is much milder than the “no grass grows” method. Most of the weeding in Mount Wuyi is like this. Teacher Y saw this weeding method when he interviewed in Jinjiao chair that year and called it “embroidery” weeding.
Embroidery style weeding
In addition to the functions mentioned above, these green manures have another advantage: they are delicious. Not only do people love to eat, but pests in tea gardens also love to eat. With Niulankeng cinnamon, who would still drink 9.9 live streaming room? With sweet and nutritious green manure, who would still eat bitter and astringent tea leaves? (Tea tree: If you eat green manure, you can’t eat me anymore)