Field Work: Clearing Trees Around the Tea Gardens

The second tea harvest wrapped up in the second half of July, just as the intense heat set in. Once the second harvest is complete, management begins in preparation for next year's tea season. Busy with fertilizing and weed control, before you know it, the autumn pruning season arrives. Field work really never ends all year round!

This summer, I set a specific goal for myself: clearing the trees growing around all of our tea gardens. Wazuka is located in a mountainous area, so many of our tea gardens border secondary forests or timber plantations. This is especially true in Yubune, where forestry was once particularly thriving.

Why Tree Clearing is Essential

Seeking more sunlight, the trees adjacent to the tea gardens stretch their branches and leaves outward, overhanging the plots. This blocks the sunlight that the tea bushes should be receiving, leading to poor growth, lower yields, and in the worst cases, causing the plants to die back. During the harvest season, fallen leaves and dead twigs contaminate the fields and get in the way of shading and harvesting operations. To prevent these issues, I decided to thoroughly prune branches and fell the wild trees along our boundaries.

A Demanding and Vital Task

For the clearing work, I use chainsaws and pole saws, relentlessly cutting away branches. The job requires constant vigilance and carries significant risk—sometimes I need to use a stepladder to lop off high branches, and other times I have to fell large trees. But when the work is done and I look at the neatly cleared boundary, there is an indescribable feeling of satisfaction that makes the effort strangely addictive. Despite the intense summer heat, I want to keep managing the fields properly so that our tea bushes can grow as best as possible.

By Hiroki A.