Mo2 treatment shows highest observed yield and quality measures in Azerbaijani tea trial

A three-season field experiment in Lankaran, Azerbaijan, found that the Mo2 microelement treatment had the highest observed tea-leaf yield and the highest recorded July values for three quality indicators. Mo2 achieved a three-season mean yield of 16.69 tonnes per hectare, 12.1% above the control, while its July samples contained 24.94% tannin, 2.99% caffeine and 47.80% extractive substances. These treatment-level comparisons remained descriptive because replicate-level variance was unavailable.

The study was conducted from 2022 through 2024 on a 1.7-hectare plantation cultivated with Camellia sinensis in yellow-gleyic pseudopodzolic soil. Seven treatments with three replicates each were assessed against a common nutrient background of nitrogen at 150 kilograms per hectare, phosphorus at 150 kilograms per hectare and potassium at 90 kilograms per hectare. The experiment examined the distribution, mobility and biological absorption coefficients of manganese, molybdenum and zinc, as well as the effects of microelement fertilization on tea-leaf yield and quality.

One-way analysis of variance detected significant treatment effects on plant height and bush diameter. The reported statistic for plant height was F = 22.5 with p < 0.001, while bush diameter produced F = 44.5 with p < 0.001. Mo2 recorded the highest observed values for both growth measures. Because the findings came from one plantation and one soil type, the results describe responses at this site rather than establish how the treatments would perform in other tea-growing environments.

Soil movement differed markedly among the three elements studied under the site’s acidic, periodically gleyed conditions. Molybdenum showed the highest measured mobility across sampled depths, with reported values ranging from 45.5% to 83.3%. The mobile fractions were below 10% for zinc and below 5% for manganese. These measurements show contrasting movement in the sampled soils; they do not by themselves establish the processes responsible for those differences or predict movement elsewhere.

Tea leaves had biological absorption coefficients in the order molybdenum, zinc and manganese, measured at 4.32, 2.37 and 0.30, respectively. That ordering was inverse to the absolute concentrations of the elements in plant tissue. In other words, the coefficient used to characterize biological uptake did not simply mirror the amount of each element accumulated in the leaves, so tissue concentration and absorption coefficient must be interpreted as separate measures.

Quality measurements also varied with harvest period. Friedman tests conducted across seven treatment-level observations identified differences among harvest periods at p < 0.01. Holm-adjusted exact paired comparisons placed July above both May and September for tannin, caffeine and extractive substances across the treatments. The small number of observations limited the resolution of the resulting p values, however, and the abstract did not provide uncertainty intervals or replicate-level statistical comparisons for the quality measurements.

Mo2 had the highest observed July values for all three reported quality indicators: 24.94% tannin, 2.99% caffeine and 47.80% extractive substances. Its three-season mean yield of 16.69 tonnes per hectare was also the highest observed treatment-level yield and exceeded the control by 12.1%. The evidence does not support describing Mo2 as a definitively superior treatment across sites, because the quality and yield comparisons could not be evaluated with the unavailable replicate-level variance.

Overall, the field trial identified distinct patterns in microelement mobility, plant uptake, harvest-period quality and treatment-level yield measures in Lankaran’s yellow-gleyic pseudopodzolic soils. The results provide a basis for further evaluation of molybdenum-responsive microfertilization in this soil system, while the single-site scope, limited treatment-level observations and missing replicate-level variance constrain broader conclusions.

Subject of Research: Soil-to-tea transfer and fertilizer responses of manganese, molybdenum and zinc in an Azerbaijani tea plantation

Article Title: Soil–plant transfer of Mn, Mo, and Zn and tea quality response to microelement fertilization in yellow-gleyic pseudopodzolic soils of Lankaran, Azerbaijan

Article References: Salimova, S., Mamedov, M., Savaşan Asgarlı, B., Yelmarlı, T., & Mammadova, S. (2026). Soil–plant transfer of Mn, Mo, and Zn and tea quality response to microelement fertilization in yellow-gleyic pseudopodzolic soils of Lankaran, Azerbaijan. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 198(11), Article 1242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-026-16075-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10661-026-16075-6

Keywords: tea cultivation, molybdenum fertilization, microelements, soil mobility, plant uptake, tea quality, field experiment, Azerbaijan, Camellia sinensis, Soil, plant, transfer