Cocoa Seed Garden: a means to disseminating improved planting materials for enhanced national productivity: A review

Cocoa growing in West Africa has historically been dependent on the use of beans from “good-looking” open-pollinated pods in farmers’ field; majority of whose yield, pest and disease tolerance/resistance are scientifically unproven. The low hectarage productivity of 0.3 – 0.5 tonnes/ha from individual farms across Nigeria has poorly supported the national cocoa production. Hybrid cocoa pods have very high breeding value for yield and other economic traits, their use for mass cultivation will increase cocoa productivity. Cocoa seed garden are hectares of established known parental clones of cocoa with an aim of generating hybrid pods through controlled cross pollination. Cocoa Seed garden sites are in fourteen states of Nigeria, Ondo state has the largest cumulative hectarage. By principle, the process of Cocoa Seed Garden entails, selection of parental stocks based on the result from routine test for combining ability among parents within thegermplasm, clonal seedling production of selected parents, patterned field establishment of the parental clones and hand pollination of parents to generate hybrid pods. Details of the principle are well discussed and information on the effective Cocoa Seed garden sites in Nigeria is provided.