Jamaica’s cocoa farmers get more yields!

Photo credit: Jamaica Information

Jamaica is gradually becoming significant in the cocoa market.

The Gleaner reports that the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) of Jamaica has reported a positive response from cocoa farmers across the country to newly introduced techniques aimed at combating the frosty pod rot disease.

The techniques, which include top grafting and basal grafting, have proven instrumental in enhancing the resilience of cocoa fields against the disease.

Dwayne Henry, Director of Project Management and Coordinator at RADA,  said, “Sometimes some technologies are pretty simple [and] create a big impact for us. We are facilitating training of farmers in both top grafting techniques and basal grafting techniques as a means of adding disease tolerance and variety to existing cocoa yields in order to increase the resilience.”

Top grafting involves attaching disease-tolerant cocoa varieties to the healthy upper sections of mature plants. 

Henry continued that, “If you have an old field and you want to improve the resistance to frosty pod rot disease, some of those trees which are old, we graft the new tolerant varieties on a healthy art of the whole plant, and once that catches and starts bearing fruit, wr remove the old plant to allow that tolerant variety to help you in managing the disease.

“When that catches, we remove the other section of the plant. So that reduces the time that the crop will be out of production literally, because you don’t remove the old crop until the new crop is actually bearing.

“If the diseased pods are not in the field and the fungus is not allowed to build up, they can remove them and either bury them or heap them and add agricultural lime or marl to break down the pods and kill the fungus quickly.

“We have assessed a consistent and healthy increase in pod production [ranging] between 52 per cent and 78 per cent, after interventions. Among involved farmers, we have seen an average 91 per cent reduction in the disease, and up to 100 per cent removal of the frosty pod rot disease from their fields.”