Above all things, Sri Lanka is known for its tea. Introduced in the nineteenth century, Ceylon tea today is a multi-billion-dollar industry that brings in wealth and tourism. The country has plans to expand tea production and improve its quality but faces serious challenges from climate change and increasing global market competition. Scientists in Sri Lanka, through the IAEA’s technical cooperation programme, are now looking to a nuclear technique to overcome these obstacles by enhancing tea plant productivity through increased genetic diversity.
Leading this effort is Mahasen AB Ranatunga, the Head and Principle Research Officer at the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka’s Plant Breeding Division. His Institute is continuously looking for ways to develop and cultivate new breeds of tea. “Because tea is not native to Sri Lanka there isn’t much genetic diversity, and despite our enormous tea output, we only have seven different types of regional tea. Working with the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we’re hoping to use new nuclear techniques, alongside conventional ones, to increase our island’s tea diversity,” Ranatunga said. Improving genetic diversity is important because genetically diverse crops are more resistant to diseases and can be more adaptive to changing weather patterns.