Centenary Year Logo Design Competition
1 January, 2026
UPASI TEA RESEARCH FOUNDATION CENTENARY CONFERENCE
22 September 2026 Coonoor, The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu
The year 2026 marks the completion of 100 years of continuous service by UPASI TRF to the tea industry of South India. This milestone calls for a landmark event that brings together the finest minds in plantation science, policy, and industry to reflect on a century of progress and to chart the course for the next hundred years.
The UPASI TRF Centenary Conference will be a one-day event with a full-scale international conference open to scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, and allied stakeholders. The event will showcase a century of scientific achievement, facilitate knowledge exchange, and produce actionable recommendations for the future of plantation science.
CONFERENCE THEME
“A Century Ahead: Advancing Tea Science for the Next Century”
The Tea Scientific Department established in October 1926, under the aegis of the United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI), has over the years grown into a pioneering research institution dedicated to the advancement of tea cultivation in Southern India, currently known as the UPASI Tea Research Foundation (UPASI TRF). In the last century, institutional scientific research and advisory services for the tea industry in South India were carried out by the UPASI Tea Research Foundation with the Tea Research Institute, located at Valparai and the Regional Advisory Centres strategically located at Coonoor, Gudalur, Koppa, Munnar, Meppadi, and Vandiperiyar - the tea growing regions of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Over the years, UPASI TRF has been actively engaged in a wide range of research disciplines, including the development of high-yielding planting materials suited to diverse agro-climatic conditions, tea bush nutrition, refinement of pruning and harvesting techniques, soil health management, mechanisation of field operations, and the development of effective plant protection measures.
