Genome-wide SNP detection in Darjeeling tea: unravelling genetic structure, functional impact and trait associations

Genotyping by sequencing and identification of functionally relevant nucleotide variations in crop accessions are the key steps to unravel genetic control of desirable traits. In the scope of present work, elite cultivars of Darjeeling tea were undergone SNP genotyping by double-digest restriction site associated DNA sequencing method. This study reports a set of 54,206 high-quality SNP markers discovered from ∼10.4 GB sequence data, encompassing 15 chromosomes of reference tea genome. Genetic relatedness among the accessions conforms to the analyses of Bayesian clustering, UPGMA, and PCoA methods. High percent of heterozygous loci in the majority of the cultivars reflect their ‘hybrid’ ancestry as reported earlier. Genomic positions of the discovered SNPs and their putative effect on annotated genes designated a thoughtful understanding of their functional aspects in tea system biology. A group of 95 genes was identified to be affected by high impact variants, most of them are involved in signal transduction, biosynthesis of secondary metabolite, transcriptional and translational regulation. Genome-wide association analyses of 21 agronomic and biochemical phenotypes resulted in trait-linked polymorphic loci with strong confidence (p < 0.05 and 0.001). The selection of significant marker-trait associations with the Bonferroni correction threshold retained a set of 57 SNPs distributed across 14 chromosomes to be linked with eight phenotypic traits. High impact and trait-associated nucleotide polymorphisms perceived in this study can be exploited in worldwide germplasm of contrasting origin to depict their heritability and to unlock their potentiality in marker-assisted breeding.

Subnational Occupations

Darjeeling’s famed tea plantations are staffed almost exclusively by an Indian Nepali (or Gorkha) labour force, whose ability to advance beyond field labour has been severely limited. In 2008, retired Gorkha plantation managers founded the Darjeeling Tea Management Training Centre (DTMTC). Though it was modeled on similar training programs, DTMTC’s goal had a twist: to prepare Gorkhas as plantation managers. According to DTMTC teachers, the contemporary Darjeeling tea industry remains precarious, stemming from a lack of knowledge on the part of Gorkhas as to how to run the industry. The DTMTC, then, was a novel blend of vocational training and political action. This chapter explores how the institute’s goals were interwoven with ideas of connection between people, plants and moral obligations to care for a Gorkha landscape—a landscape that might be improved with the right kinds of training.

Major tea processing practices in India.

Tea is the most popular beverage in the world and is the economical backbones of some countries like India, China, Kenya, Sri Lanka etc. Indian tea is very much popular among the world, specially Darjeeling tea which is famous for its flavour and taste. Among the various types of tea, orthodox tea is highly demandable for its quality. The present paper deals with various types of tea processing in India. Mainly three types of tea processing are practices in India. Among these, CTC tea processing is more common in Indian sub-continent followed by Green tea and Orthodox tea. In this paper, details manufacturing process and step wise pictorial viewed are presented. All the data are extracted from different world famous tea gardens of Darjeeling, terai and duars of Northern West Bengal.

Of Old and New Business Ethics: How Fair Trade Becomes Patronage and Paternalism in a Darjeeling Tea Plantation

This paper is about Fair Trade and business ethics. It analyses data from fieldwork conducted in a famous Darjeeling tea plantation which practices biological and biodynamic farming and is labeled as Fair Trade. Its aim is to show how the plantation owner, using aggressive marketing of his engagement with eco-friendly and corporately-responsible management, has managed to regenerate an old patronage system more or less similar to industrial paternalism, but with its roots in colonial as well as indigenous domination structures. Disappointed by their unions, workers have had no alternative but to accept this form of governance, and some even acknowledge it as a good one. This case is a good example of how Fair Trade, which claims to empower workers, can be used to fuel a system which results in their disempowerment as social actors.