Breeding and Testing Fuming 10 Tea Cultivar

Objective A new oolong tea variety was bred and tested.

Method The natural hybrid progenies of ‘Yuemingxiang’ tea was bred by selection and asexual propagation to arrive at the new variety, Fuming No. 10. Subsequently, official regional testing was conducted to certify its field performance.

Result At the regional test, ‘Fuming 10’ displayed a survival rate of greater than 88% and was classified as an early budding variety, even though its phenological period was 2–6 d later than that of the reference tea ‘Huangdan’. The cold- and drought-resist tea was 2.32%-3.64% higher on leaf yield and 0.2–0.86 points higher on quality score than the reference as well.

Conclusion The high-quality, high-yield, strongly resistant ‘Fuming 10’ tea was an early budding variety suitable for cultivation in Fu'an, Songxi, Fuzhou, and areas of similar geographic and climatic conditions for making oolong tea.