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HERITABILITY OF SINGLE PLANT YIELD AND INCIDENCE OF BLACK POD DISEASE IN COCOA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2007

G. LOCKWOOD
Affiliation:
30 St Martins Drive, Eynsford, Dartford, Kent DA4 0EZ UK
F. OWUSU-ANSAH
Affiliation:
Cocoa Research Institute, PMB Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana
Y. ADU-AMPOMAH
Affiliation:
Cocoa Research Institute, PMB Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Broad sense heritabilities were estimated in three long-term cocoa clone trials in Ghana, with 20, 18 and 15 entries. They were 0.15, 0.05 and 0.15 for yield in pods per plant, and 0.26, 0.19 and 0.40 for incidence of ‘bad’ pods, mostly due to black pod disease, caused by infection with Phytophthora spp. The low heritability of single plant yield, which has been known for 80 years, has been widely overlooked in cocoa research and extension, compromising the success of clone selection programmes. The heritability of the incidence of black pod disease is high enough to justify mass selection where family level data are not available. The findings will be applied in a new large-scale programme in Ghana to select clones that are high yielding in the presence of P. megakarya.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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