Saikia, G.KBorah, Rishika2024-10-082024-10-082023https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810215505Tea is generally grown as a monoculture. However to augment farm income of small tea growers the concept of tea based cropping system where other crops are raised within a tea plantation is being tried. Two cropping systems- one with tea under conventional shade and the other with tea under intercrop situation were studied. The experiment was carried out in Experimental Garden for Plantation Crops, Department of Tea Husbandry and Technology, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during 2022. Effect of rubber on growth and yield of tea in tea based cropping system was studied along with the nutrient availability in the soil. Tea under conventional shade tree Albizzia chinensis gave highest yield when compared to tea under rubber plant’s shade as the uptake of nutrients was more. The light penetrating through the dense canopy of rubber is very low, which is a direct factor for lowered yield under rubber shade. Even the thickness of the tea stem, plucking point density, shoot weight, bush spread of tea was found to be highest in the tea- Albizzia chinensis plot. The nutrient uptake by the tea shoot was higher in the control plot due to proper penetration of light and adequate nutrients in the soil. Rubber tree shows increment in girth which is an important parameter for the rubber yield. For the growth and development of the rubber tree, canopy is also an important factor as it regulates the exchange of carbon. Tea under rubber shade was more prone to moisture stress due to higher rate of transpiration. The soil carbon content was found to higher in the tea-rubber intercropped plot due to faster rate of decomposition of leaf litters in a well shaded condition. The available NPK content was found to be higher in the intercropped plot due to releasing of nutrients by the tree to meet crop demands. The rubber plant had no adverse effect on the soil status but due to the dense canopy spread of the rubber interplanted with narrow spacing the light transmission is quite low which eventually effects the yield and growth of the tea plants.EnglishThesis