Costa Rican scientists plan to ship to Africa cocoa tree seeds bred to resist a deadly Latin American fungus, to preempt any outbreak of the disease in the world's largest cocoa growing region. "Frosty pod" fungus, or Moniliophthora roreri, is only found in the Americas, mainly Central and South America.
Scientists at the genetic labs of the CATIE tropical research centre in Turrialba, Costa Rica, have developed trees with a strong resistance to the disease, and now hope to ward off the risk of a potentially devastating outbreak in Africa.
"It's a very dangerous disease, the greatest danger that the global cocoa growing industry could face," top geneticist Walter Phillips at the CATIE centre told Reuters.
Frosty pod destroys cocoa beans on trees before they can be harvested. It ruined cocoa crops in Ecuador and Central America in the 1980s. Phillips said cocoa trees in Africa, where most of the world's cocoa is grown, would be far more susceptible because they have developed no defences to fungus.
The fungus spores are easily dispersed and can survive for up to nine months on a carrier - like a backpacker or shipping container - making it possible to infect crops far away from where the spores were picked up. Frosty pod cannot be eradicated but expensive farm practices, like aggressive pruning and weekly removal of infected pods, can limit outbreaks.
The resistant seedlings and seeds grown in CATIE's nurseries were sent to the University of Reading in England where they will spend at least two years in quarantine before continuing their journey to Africa.
Once in Africa, they will be stored as reserves or released for experimental planting. Africa has a number of major cocoa producers. The Ivory Coast produces more than one million tonnes of cocoa each year.
Last year CATIE expanded its research by planting 30 hectares with experimental hybrid varieties of cocoa in the hopes of finding a strain totally immune to the fungus. But it will be at least five years until those experiments produce preliminary results.