Seasonal Responses Of Total Antioxidant Level In Cultivated Tea To Fertilizer

ABSTRACT

The research was conducted to find out whether applying fertilizer to tea at specific season of the year will affect the level of antioxidant. The main objective of the research was to determine the correlation between the level of antioxidant in tea and the season at which fertilizer was applied. Secondary data was obtained from James Finlay Kenya Limited with the authority of Applied Research Department. Trials of NPK fertilizer were conducted during the four seasons of the year: dry season, high rains season, medium rain season and low rains season. The treatments were replicated four times in a Complete Randomized Design (CRD). The harvested leaves were then freeze dried and ground for total antioxidant using 2, 2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis were done using SPSS. The results of this study showed that there was a significant difference between the levels of antioxidant during the four seasons of the year with the highest being during the low rains and lowest during the dry and high rains seasons.