Countermeasures of low-carbon economy for sustainable development of China’s tea industry

The indispensable connotation and development of low-carbon economy were introduced in this paper. Moreover, the major limiting factors of tea-oriented industry development in China’s low carbon economy were analyzed. These factors include blindfolded and excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers, high costs and frequent use of pesticides, difficulties in timely tea shoot picking, low use efficiency of tea resources, low input/output proportion, low benefits due to the large acreages of low-yield tea gardens, low efficiency of matter and energy cycles due to single species and short bio-chain tea gardens, etc. Finally, countermeasures for the sustainable development of China’s tea-oriented industries in low-carbon economy are put forward. Such countermeasures include reducing nitrogenous fertilizer use, and in-depth studies of fertilizer application techniques to increase use efficiency, reducing application rate and improving efficiency of pesticides, integrating agronomic measures with prevention/cure of plant diseases and pests, optimizing structural varieties and accelerating low-output tea garden rebuilding, promoting high efficiency matter and energy cycles of tea gardens via eco-tea garden construction and bio-chain extension.