FORMATION, DEVELOPMENT, CURRENT STATE AND SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT OF TEA-GROWING INDUSTRY IN RUSSIA

The paper reflected the main stages of tea–growing industry development in Russia – selection of tea-suitable lands, laying of tea plantations, dynamics of leaf-gathering areas and volumes of tea production, tea-producing farms, and forms of state support. The main results of research carried out at the Russian Research Institute of Floriculture and Subtropical Crops are summarized for tea culture: breeding work aimed at increasing cultivars resistance to drought and low-temperature stress; agrotechnological aspects of tea cultivation in Russia (the technology of vegetative propagation, irrigation system and fertilizers on tea plantations); soil-agrochemical research (evaluation criteria of tea suitability and soil fertility, the effectiveness of different types and doses of macroand microfertilizers, diagnosis of mineral nutrition for tea, criteria for assessing the agrogenic transformation of soils within the long tea cultivation) and physiological and biochemical research (the effectiveness of non-root application of minor-nutrient elements, diagnosis of tea resistance to drought and low-temperature stress, biochemical parameters of tea raw material and finished products quality); biotechnological work on conservation and reproduction of valuable tea genotypes.