Guwahati, July 28 -- As climate change increasingly threatens Assam's tea industry, scientists have found that the answer to protecting tea gardens may lie beneath the soil-in billions of microscopic organisms that quietly sustain the health of tea bushes.

A four-year study led by researchers from Nagaland University, in collaboration with the Tea Research Association (Tocklai), ICAR and several national and international institutions, has revealed how seasonal changes in temperature and rainfall dramatically influence soil microbes and enzyme activity in Assam's tea plantations.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environments, provide one of the most comprehensive assessments yet of how climate variability affects the...