Cocoa Plantation Essay

1735 Words4 Pages

1.0 Introduction
Plant pathology is a science that studies plant diseases and attempts to improve the chances for survival of plants when they are faced with biotic and abiotic factors that cause disease. Plants will produce well as long as they get sufficient nutrient and moisture, light for photosynthesis and optimum temperature. However, plants also get sick. Sick plants produce poorly and the symptoms of disease will appear. The agents that cause disease in plants are similar to those causing disease in human and animals.
Cocoa plantation needs a healthy and vigorous tree because their life span is more than 25 years in producing pods. The infected cocoa trees by diseases will be partly or entirely weakening, thus unproductive and dead eventually. This will result the decrease in crop production due to loss in tree stand per hectare (Azmi; 2003).
It is need to planting cocoa clones that are resistant to diseases because, tough planting materials is the most operative and economical method of disease controlling (Lamin et al., 1999) especially for the small holder sector.
Black pod and canker which caused by Phytophthora palmivora, vascular streak dieback (Oncobasidium theobromae), several root diseases such as brown root disease (Phellinus noxius), white root disease (Rigidoporus lignosus), red root disease (Ganoderma sp.) and others (Wood; 1975) was disease that attack cocoa trees in Malaysia. The diseased tree which is infected by fungi normally will be treated with fungicide as a standard control measure (Wood, 1975), but this chemical control is very expensive and the pathogen might develop inoculation against the chemical used and in a long period it might not be completely effective.

2.0 Major Diseases of Coco...

... middle of paper ...

... spores of the fungus on to the growing tips of cocoa seedlings resulted in the development of disease symptoms in 36% of the seedlings and Oncobasidium theobromae was isolated from the diseased tissues. In addition there is much previously accumulated evidence that Oncobasidium theobromae is the primary cause of the disease and not just a secondary invader. Obvious or macroscopic weakening or mechanical damage of plants seemed to be unnecessary for fungal infection and the presence of the fungus actually preceded the development of disease symptom.
Lastly, the pathogen needs to be control by cultural practices, chemical and host plant resistance. Resistant pruning will avoid the dieback penetrate to other parts of trees. The cocoa trees need regular check up to detect the symptoms of dieback on the trees and the management can be proceeding if the diseases happen.

Open Document