Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/491371
STiR tea & coffee industry international 57 To start the tea growing program, tea plants were specially propagated for O'Braan in Italy and once established at the farm in Scotland, cuttings were tak- en from those original plants to create enough stock for the Dalreoch farm. The new bushes went into the ground in 2012, struggled through deep snow during the worst winter in the past 100 years, survived and began to grow well in early 2013. Once into the open ground, O'Braan's unusual cultivation techniques, developed in the Brazilian Amazon, Aus- tralia, and Holland, come into play. A revolutionary technique He starts by covering the ground in which the tea seedlings are growing with a degradable polymer, and this keeps the soil warm and prevents loss of moisture. As O'Braan explains, "By using degrad- able polymers around the plant, we reflect the sun's own goodness upwards, doubling the effect of Scottish sunshine but also reducing the shade that insects prefer. We don't use petrochemical-based pesticide and this means that airborne insects are discouraged from laying eggs on our crops. The degradable membrane traps the heat already within our soil and heightens humidity while reducing the need for any secondary watering." The polymer covering allows the plants' roots to develop more quickly and to strengthen, and that encourages better growth and the production of healthier, larger leaves above ground. The membrane also traps nutrients, which would otherwise be evaporated, and feeds them back into the soil. The polymer, which is programmable to pre-determine how long it takes to degrade, eventually collapses into the soil along with the nutrients." When the plants have become more sturdy and mature, "we strip off up to 80% of the green leaves on the lower branches, leaving enough to keep the plants alive, and then we surround each plant with a narrow tube made of specific UV-reflective plastic. That cuts down the amount of light reaching the plant and encourages more growth at the top, so the plants produce a greater number of pale, delicate new shoots which we can harvest and process as higher quality teas." Six months of restricted light is enough for the plants, which will not produce good flavor and quality if ac- cess to light is limited for too long, and so in August the light-inhibiting shields are removed, the plants are moved into a plastic cloche tunnel where they continue to develop and grow normally, protect- ed from strong autumn winds and cold temperatures. In February, at the start of the growing season, the plants are again stripped of the lower leaves and the plas- tic tubes are replaced. As the plants grow higher, the light-inhibiting tubes also have to become taller. The plan is to gradually expand the farm so that there are eventually 14,000 plants in the ground, and in order to cre- ate plenty of new stock, and to have more for sale to other new local tea farmers, O'Braan says "hardwood cuttings from Tam O'Braan, managing director of the Wee Tea Farm The farm in late summer 2014 with some plants growing inside a plastic cloche tunnel and others in the open The plants at Wee Tea Farm on a frosty winter morning in 2012 Photo by Jane Pettigrew Photo by Jane Pettigrew Photo by Jane Pettigrew