Diseases are the most important factors limiting production of Theobroma cacao in South America. Because of high disease pressure and environmental concerns, biological control is a pertinent area of research for cacao disease management. In this work, we evaluated the ability of four Bacillus spp. isolated from vegetable crops, for their ability to colonize T. cacao seedlings and reduce the se...

Drought is worldwide considered one of the most limiting factors of Theobroma cacao production, which can be intensified by global climate changes. In this study, we aimed to investigate the phenotypic correlation among morphological characteristics of cacao progenies submitted to irrigation and drought conditions and their partitions into direct and indirect effects. Path analysis with phenoty...

Shaded perennial agroforestry systems contain relatively high quantities of soil carbon (C) resulting from continuous deposition of plant residues; however, the extent to which the C is sequestered in soil will depend on the extent of physical protection of soil organic C (SOC). The main objective of this study was to characterize SOC storage in relation to soil fraction-size classes in cacao (...

We evaluated the genetic and physiological variability of Moniliophthora perniciosa obtained from healthy and diseased branches of cacao (Theobroma cacao) plants. The diversity of the isolates was evaluated by RAPD technique and by studies of virulence and exoenzyme production. The genetic variability of endophytic and pathogenic M. perniciosa was evaluated in association with pathogenicity ass...

Previous investigations on the phenolic constituents of Theobroma cacao L. have been largely limited to studies on the polyphenols of the ripe bean (Forsyth, 1952, 1955; Forsyth & Quesnel, 1957), which have been shown to be of major importance in determining the taste characteristics of processed cacao. Studies are now being pursued in this Laboratory on the nature of the factors determining th...

Theobroma cacao L., or cacao, is the source of cocoa products used in the making of chocolate. These tropical trees are conserved in living genebanks. The International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad is one of the largest ex situ collections in the public domain. Mislabelling is a critical problem and the correction of this problem is vital to improve the accuracy and efficiency of genebank managemen...

As the world faces alarming rates of tropical forest loss, some agricultural systems offer a glimmer of hope. In particular, agroforestry, where crops are cultivated in association with trees, provides some of the ecological benefits of natural forest while allowing farmers to make a living off their land (1–3). However, only in agroforestry systems that involve the production of globally trade...

Combining crop plants with other plant species in agro-ecosystems is one way to enhance ecological pest and disease regulation mechanisms. Resource availability and microclimatic variation mechanisms affect processes related to pest and pathogen life cycles. These mechanisms are supported both by empirical research and by epidemiological models, yet their relative importance in a real complex a...

In soil, anoxia conditions generated by waterlogging induce changes in genetic, morphological and physiological processes, altering the growth and development of plants. Mass propagation of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) plantlets (clones) is affected by waterlogging caused by heavy rains and irrigation methods used to induce rooting. An experiment was undertaken to assess the effects of a 45-day f...

This article describes the design and implementation of CACAO, a just in time compiler for Java. The CACAO system translates Java byte code on demand into native code for the ALPHA processor. During this translation process the stack oriented Java byte code is transformed into a register oriented intermediate code. Local variables and stack locations are replaced by pseudo registers eliminating...