Achievements
Black Pod Screening
- Two leaf tests (penetration and post-penetration) developed for screening cocoa germplasm. (Iwaro et al., 1997)
- Stem canker identification test developed.
- Pod test developed.
- Successful screening of nine hundred and sixty accessions of the ICG,T for Black Pod resistance using spray inoculation on pods.
- Generated populations with enhanced resistance to Witches' Broom and Black Pod diseases.
Witches' Broom Screening
- Rapid screening method (Purdy et al. 1997) modified for screening germplasm for the disease (Surujdeo-Maharaj et al., 2003).
- Confirmatory test developed by Sreenivasan et al and fine-tuned by Surujdeo-Maharaj et al.
- A total of 773 clones have been screened for resistance to Witches’ Broom disease using spray inoculation techniques. Results obtained from screening have shown that there is considerable variation for resistance to WB (ranging from highly resistant to highly susceptible) within the collection of cacao held at the ICG,T and confirmed that sources of resistant germplasm can be source from within the collection.
- Generated populations with enhanced resistance to Witches' Broom and Black Pod diseases.
