Recent Publications View

Item type Journal Article
Bibliography Dillon, N.L.; Zhang, D.; Nauheimer, L.; Toramo, E.; Nagalevu, P. et al. (2023) Understanding the cocoa genetic resources in the Pacific to assist producers to supply the growing craft market, In: New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science (Special issue), 1-15, URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/01140671.2023.2278788
Abstract / Content summary The Pacific countries of Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu account for less than 2% of the world’s cacao dry bean production. To capitalise on the rapidly expanding origin craft cocoa market, understanding the genetic attributes of Theobroma cacao in the Pacific is essential. A six-year ACIAR-funded project collected 1647 dried leaf samples from research stations and smallholder farms to identify the population ancestry of T. cacao in the partner countries. Using SNP marker profiling, the study identified germplasm high in Amelonado, which represents the majority of material throughout the Pacific. However, the study also identified samples high in the remaining nine genetic groups, including Criollo, Nanay, IMC (Iquitos), Guiana, Parinari (Marañón), Nacional, Ucayali (Contamana), LCT EEN (Curaray), and Purus, which were distributed throughout the Pacific. The results, if utilised in local selection trials, could reposition growers in the Pacific countries, allowing them to supply the growing origin craft cocoa market, with genetically unique beans. Cocoa genetics was one aspect of a project incorporating production and postharvest research to refocus the commodity based cocoa industry to a supplier of high-quality beans of unique Pacific cocoa origin to the rapidly expanding craft ‘bean to bar’ cocoa industry. Keywords: Cacao; cocoa; chocolate; Pacific; SNP markers; genetic attributes; diversity; craft origin; production; growers Note: Special issue: Plant science research in the Pacific
File NZJCHS_CocoaGeneticResources.pdf
File info 2.99 MB, PDF
External web link https://doi.org/10.1080/01140671.2023.2278788
Library Locations
Associated conference
identifier ISSN: 0114-0671| DOI: 10.1080/01140671.2023.2278788
Record 
 of 7,512