ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1581120
This article is part of the Research TopicOptimizing Fertilizer and Irrigation for Specialty Crops Using Precision Agriculture TechnologiesView all 14 articles
Organic fertilizer substitution optimizes aroma metabolites in Wuyi Rock Tea
Provisionally accepted
- 1Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
- 2Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
- 3College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
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Pleasant aroma is a distinctive character of Wuyi Rock tea. Here, we demonstrated that organic fertilizer substitution could optimize the aroma metabolites in Wuyi Rock tea through improving soil fertility and nutrient characteristics of tea leaves. Two-year field trials had been carried out in the core-region of Wuyi Rock tea production area with organic (OF) or inorganic (CF) fertilization. The results indicated that OF significantly improves soil fertility, as indicated by increased pH and organic matter (OM). GC-MS analysis showed that OF dramatically affects the aroma metabolites in tea leaves with increased levels of 1-hexanol, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, (E,E)-2,4-heptadienal, E-nerolidol and 3-octen-2-one increased by 56.55%, 104.44%, 64.39%, 64.10% and 48.10% respectively, and thereby improving its aroma quality. The correlation diagram and PLS-PM model combined with the results from ionomics and metabolomics, further elucidated that soil fertility significantly impacted the mineral nutrients and volatile metabolites in tea leaves, like OM significantly positively correlated with 2-ethyl-1hexanol in tea leaves, but soil available P content and available K content played converse roles. Altogether, our study provides a theoretical basis on rational fertilization for improving quality and sustainability in tea production.
Keywords: organic fertilizer, aroma, Soil, Wuyi Rock Tea, Metabolites
Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Yu, Cui, luo, Luo, Song and Liao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hong Liao, College of Resources and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
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