Soil Acidification and Its Improvement of Tea Gardens in Jiangxi

In order to fully understand the soil acidification of tea gardens in Jiangxi and provide scientific foundation for governmental policy-decision makers, an investigation of tea garden soil pH from 203 representative samples was conducted in 18 tea production counties. The results showed that, the soil pH of tea gardens in Jiangxi was in an average of 4.65, with the highest pH of 6.95 and the lowest pH of 3.51. The acidic soil samples with pH less than 4.5 accounted for 43% of the total. Based on pH value, 18 tea production counties were divided into five types of soils. The area with optimal soil pH for tea growth was Xingzi county, and areas with over acidification were Xiushui, Tonggu, Nanchang and other 6 counties. Temporally, soil pH decreased slowly with an increase of tea planting time, and the decreasing rate was varied with soil types; while soil pH was with little change spatially.