COCOA PORCELANA SHOWS LESS VEGETATIVE VIGOUR THAN ‘VRAE 99’ AND ‘CCN 51’ AFTER REHABILITATION PRUNING, UNDER RAINFED AGRICULTURE

Abstract

Cocoa production is the livelihood of plenty of smallholders, particularly in developing countries such as Peru, where the production of Theobroma cacao has a social and economic impact. However, one of the most important problems in cocoa production is the low productivity caused by the aging of the cacao trees. In this context, we carried out an experiment to evaluate the response of CCN 51, VRAE 99, VRAE 15 and Porcelana genotypes to rehabilitation pruning. The pruning was done at one meter above the ground during the month of February in the district of Vizcatán del Ene (Satipo). On overall, the results pointed out that CCN 51 and VRAE 99 presented greater number, length and diameter of buds; they also showed greater number of nodes, length of internodes, length and width of leaves and fresh and dry matter than Porcelana (p ≤ 0.05). Furthermore, CCN 51, VRAE 99 and VRAE 15 showed short acuminate apex, while all genotypes studied presented stiff texture leaves. Likewise, the color of the terminal bud was mainly red, dark red, red and light green to CCN 51, VRAE 99, VRAE 15 and Porcelana, respectively. Finally, we can conclude that CCN 51 and VRAE 99 were the most vigor genotypesand, and Porcelain the least vigorous, under harsh conditions.