| |
|
|
By John Wall
College of Agricultural Sciences
Scientists in a Penn State research program have developed a process to clone genetically identical cocoa trees from cocoa flowers, which could enhance cocoa plant quality on a large scale. And that, in turn, could increase cocoa farming profitability and stabilize the supply of cocoa beans on the global market.
"Right now, cocoa plants are grown from seed, and these plants vary greatly in their yield and disease resistance," said Mark Guiltinan, associate professor of plant molecular biology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. "In some cases, up to 50 percent of the trees can be substandard. By selecting the best trees and producing identical clones, we potentially can increase plant productivity on farms."
Guiltinan and a team of scientists soon will begin a long-term field test of cloned cocoa plants at the Union Vale Estate on Saint Lucia Island in the West Indies (off the northern coast of South America). The estate is owned by Edmund Opler, chief executive officer of World's Finest Chocolate Inc.
The Penn State team collected flowers from 14 of the most productive cocoa trees on the estate. As a control, they also collected flowers from several of the worst trees. The flowers were flown back to University Park, where individual cells from the buds were grown into full-sized plants. Guiltinan said the process, called "somatic embryogenesis," replicates a more complete plant than those derived from grafting.
The plants produced from the flower cells have been grown in Penn State greenhouses for the past year. By June, the cloned cocoa plants will be planted in a Union Vale Estate field together with plants grown from grafts and from seed. Over the next three to five years, researchers will measure growth rates, pod production and chocolate-making quality.
"When plant breeders find a superior plant, the idea is to make more of them," Guiltinan said. "A tree grown from a single cell is genetically identical to the parent tree, so breeders can choose plants that are best adapted to a particular geographic area or are resistant to certain diseases."
Guiltinan says the cocoa tree cloning project on Saint Lucia will take years to implement on a large scale because the plants take four to five years to mature enough for scientists to gauge yield, production and disease resistance.
The economic implications of the research are significant. Most cocoa
is grown on small farms in Brazil, Ghana, Indonesia, the Ivory Coast and
Malaysia. If breeding programs can produce plants particularly well-suited
for different growing areas, farmers' incomes will increase. In addition,
the elimination of boom-or-bust crop cycles will help stabilize world cocoa
production, which would benefit Pennsylvania's
$4-billion chocolate industry. Pennsylvania is the country's top chocolate-producing
state.
Guiltinan's team also is starting a genetic engineering research program to breed plants resistant to disease and pests.
"Forty percent of the cocoa crop is lost to disease and pests every year," Guiltinan said. "That's billions of dollars lost to the economies of cocoa-producing countries."
Research shows the most severe cases of sleep apnea occur in people under age 45 and should be treated more aggressively to reduce problems including hypertension. Edward Bixler, professor of psychiatry in the College of Medicine, said this was not previously discovered because most studies focused only on middle or older age groups.
Sleep apnea is a condition in which a person stops breathing for at least 10 seconds, 10 or more times during an hour of sleep.
Agricultural Information Services has developed a set of informational graphics.
For more information or to contribute a topic suggestion, call John Wall
at (814) 863-2719.
