Theobroma cacao - Science topic

Dear Ivan,

I have no experience with Theobroma cacao somatic embryogenesis (SE) or organogenesis. However, I have dealt with this troubling issue (reproducibility of results in plant tissue cultures) in other species for many years. Here I will briefly make one point in general terms.

Compare the protocols of papers describing Theobroma cacao SE. Significant differences between these protocols indicate that no standard protocol served different research groups. Probably, later research groups could not reproduce (to their satisfaction) the results with the protocols developed previously. If this is the case, you will likely need to select one protocol as a starting point for your approach to refine it to suit the Theobroma cacao genotype(s) you are working with. As unfortunate and disappointing as it is, this is the accepted practice...

Best wishes,

Benjamin

See attached paper.

Hi, Mercedes. Are you referring to Major Allele Frequency or Minor Allele Frequency? Looking at your question, I assume it is Major Allele Frequency. Basically, SNPs with MAF >95% are highly homozygous in an assayed population, thus these markers do not provide enough power to differentiate populations, and informative enough for diversity assessment. We sometimes still include these markers when using SNP arrays. You either can re-customize to smaller array or just drop these markers if PCR-based genotyping method is used. For your extra information, hapmap researchers would prefer Minor Allele Frequency. The reason is simple, because their focus is mainly on the common alleles based on Minor Allele Frequencies >0.05 that affect the target traits (mainly disease tolerance in humans). Hope I answer your question, Mercedes.

Some of you may have been looking for the following papers as well, here are the pdf-files of

Billes D.J. 1941 Pollination of Theobroma cacao L. in Trinidad. Tropical Agriculture 18: 151 Kaufman 1974. Cocoa pollination by males of Forcipomyia squamipennis (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) in Ghana. Tropical Agriculture 52:71-74. Posnette 1944 Pollination of cacao in Trinidad. Tropical agriculture 21:115-118

Dear Thomas Fungenzi

Have a look at these published papers about biochemical composition of cocoa leaves:

I did soil analysis using ICP -OES technique.

Toxic elements, including Cd, In cocoa powder which Is imported In my country (Republic of Serbia) Is also analysed by ICP -OES technique.

I feel , its strongly related .But uotake would e linked to the growth stage where root flush is maximum since it will generate consequently higher density of nutrient transporters embedded in plasmalema of root cells..

Please see following publication on comparative Evaluation of Six Extraction Methods for DNA Quantification and PCR Detection in Cocoa and Cocoa-Derived Products

Barry Callebaut has filed a patent for a process to grind cocoa shells into a powder fit for use as a cocoa replacer, fat bloom inhibitor and ingredient in other foods.

Good efforts Dr. Laura. little work has been done for this crop.

Alphus statement is correct. Please see following publication on Isolation of endophytic endospore-forming bacteria from Theobroma cacao as potential biological control agents of cacao diseases. If it can help you in getting cross references.

 Interesting publication linked by Dr. Houda on synthetic sex hormone trap