Establishment of a cocoa germplasm bank (Theobroma cacao L.) with selected Creole trees in the municipality of San Pedro Nonualco, department of La Paz, El Salvador

Abstract

The research was carried out in the municipalities of San Pedro Nonualco and San Luis Talpa, La Paz; Tenancingo, Cuscatlán and San Salvador. Collection and characterization tours were carried out in situ, during the period from October 2017 to October 2018, identifying cocoa trees with promising characteristics. The place selected for the establishment of the germplasm bank was in the Robles canton, municipality of San Pedro Nonualco, La Paz. with geographical coordinates 13 ° 36'11.2 "north latitude and 89 ° 55'44.9" west longitude, with an altitude of 520 meters above sea level. For the characterization of the collected germplasm, descriptors used in Mexico, Peru and Venezuela were used. The bromatological analysis of the seed was also carried out on the fruits of the trees found. For the interpretation of the information, descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis were used through the statistical program SPSS version 25. As a result, a total of 36 cocoa trees were morphologically characterized. The multivariate method used showed a variability of the species with 86.33% of reliability originating 12 clusters, nine trees with a pentagon fruit shape, nine trees with white seed color, typical characteristics of Creole cocoa were found and 29 trees were obtained with Fat content less than 50%. It is concluded that of the trees found and characterized, 25% (9 trees) have a pentagon fruit shape and 52.78% (19 trees) white, cream and pink seed color, which are typical characteristics of Creole cocoa germplasm. The formation of a germplasm bank with the collected material is achieved; but cloned trees collected in previous research were also incorporated. Finally, a catalog with the characterized trees was developed.