ORIGINAL PAPER Nickel dynamics influenced by municipal solid waste compost application in tea (Camellia sinensis L.): a cup that cheers T. Karak 1 • R. K. Paul 2 • I. Sonar 1 • J. R. Nath 1 • R. K. Boruah 1 • A. K. Dutta 1 Received: 15 April 2015 / Revised: 11 August 2015 / Accepted: 28 September 2015 / Published online: 27 October 2015 Ó Islamic Azad University (IAU) 2015 Abstract Effects of municipal solid waste compost application on tea (Camellia sinensis L.) cultivation (Tocklai Vegetative clone 1 and Tocklai Vegetative clone 23) was studied with respect to biomass yield, soil nickel risk, nickel uptake and transfer to tea infusion. Application of municipal solid waste compost @ 2–6 t ha -1 in soil lowered the risk assessment code of nickel by increasing non-labile nickel pool. Reduced Ni translocation factor from root to stem to leaf led to low nickel accumulation in leaf indicating high nickel tolerance ability of tea. Tea infusions from Tocklai Vegetative clone 1 and Tocklai Vegetative clone 23 with municipal solid waste compost application in soil up to 10 t ha -1 showed leaf nickel contents below permissible limit, i.e., from 0.002 to 1.2 and 0.01 to 1.1 lgL -1 , respectively. Municipal solid waste compost could therefore be a valuable alternative for soil amendment subject to non-enhancement of soil nickel storage on long-term use. The one-way analysis of variance along with Duncan’s multiple range tests showed signifi- cant differences between pair of treatments. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed formation of three different groups between the clones and treatments imposed. Keywords Bioaccumulation factor  Risk assessment code  Tea infusion  Tocklai Vegetative clone  Translocation  Tolerance index  Yield Introduction Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) is a perennial (continues the effective production up to 70 years) and acidophilic crop, which grows well in tropical and subtropical regions (45°N–34°S) of 45 countries spread over all the continents except North America (Karak and Bhagat 2010). Tea is known as widely consumed non-alcoholic, cheaper and stimulating ancient beverage with several health benefits (Karak et al. 2011). Among the tea producing countries, India is the second largest tea producing one and Assam tea (Assam, a state in northeast India contributing about 56 % of total Indian tea production) is famous in the global market for its quality (Tea statistics of India 2013). How- ever, declining yield of Assam tea production could be related to the degradation of soil health due to the intensive agricultural practices, indiscriminate use of chemical fer- tilizers and cultivation of high-yielding tea crop. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to manage the soil health by adding organic materials in soil as most of the tea growing soil in northeast India (total cultivated tea land in Assam, a well-known tea growing belt in northeast India, is around 322.21 thousand ha in the year 2011 as reported by Tea Board of India; Tea statistics of India 2013) is categorized as soil having low organic carbon content ( \ 1 %). This low organic carbon status in tea soil invites the need for proper management of organic carbon in soil through addition of compost, which is a common practice in most of the tea gardens. However, because of scarcity of commonly used organic materials like cow dung, agricultural waste and so forth, alternative composting materials need to be found out. It has been documented that municipal solid waste (MSW) could be one of the alternative sources of com- posting materials as it is available not only free of cost but also beneficial toward environmentally sound disposal and & T. Karak tanmay.karak@gmail.com 1 Upper Assam Advisory Centre, Tea Research Association, Dikom, Dibrugarh 786101, Assam, India 2 Division of Statistical Genetics, Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India 123 Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2016) 13:663–678 DOI 10.1007/s13762-015-0900-4