Plantation Crops

Propagation in cocoa

• Cocoa can be planted either as

  1) Seedling or through
  2) Vegetative propagated material
Seed propagation:
• At present, commercial propagation of cocoa is through seedlings. Use ripe pods and seeds will lose viability soon after they are taken out of pods. Hence, fresh beans are used for sowing.
• Seed viability can however be enhanced for several weeks when kept mixed with charcoal. Pods as such stored in polythene bags and dry charcoal powder retained viability upto a period of 30 days.
Vegetative Propagation:
• Cocoa being a cross pollinated plant seedlings show considerable variability. Vegetative propagation is through
  1)cuttings,
  2)budding : i.e., Forket method of budding or 3)soft wood grafting.
  3) Grafting ( Soft wood grafting) :The soft wood grafting technique was first standardized at Vittal Station of CPCRI using four months old seedlings as root stock. Scion collected from high yielding plants with other desired characters, were grafted on the seedlings which gave 60-80% success
Soft wood grafting in cocoa :
• Vegetative propagation is important since true to type trees are produced. Soft wood grafting is a more preferred vegetative method for production of planting material. The material consists of cleft grafting of scions to 2-3 month old seedlings root stocks.  http://dccd.gov.in/ctech.htm#about
• Age of root stock : 2- 3 months old
• Length of scion stick : 12-14 cm
• The scion sticks should be 12-14 cm long and secured to root stock cleft by 1.5 cm wide polythene tape. Graft union takes place within one month . The grafts will be ready after 3 months for planting.