Metabolomics Reveal That the High Application of Phosphorus and Potassium in Tea Plantation Inhibited Amino-Acid Accumulation but Promoted Metabolism of Flavonoid

As leaf-harvest plants, tea trees show unique nutrient requirements, different from those of corn and other field crops. However, the effects nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) application on accumulation quality-related compounds mechanisms underlying how nutrients affect tea-leaf metabolism have not been well elucidated. Here, fertilizers with N, P, K ratios were applied to plants in pot experiments, metabolomics based gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) combined multivariate statistical quantitative detections conducted assess responses NPK leaves. An increased proportion P was beneficial for carbohydrates catechins shoots, although total carbon content did increase significantly. In contrast, a high input reduced relative chlorophyll contents free amino acids such as theanine glutamic acid negatively correlated content. Moreover, malic tricarboxylic cycle highly promoted by increasing K. These results validate our suggestion that amounts plantations induces biased reallocation photosynthates catechin pathway promoting young which further affects quality. The this study provide theoretical ground quality improvement optimizing fertilization strategies.