CANOPY CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTRASTING CLONES OF CACAO (THEOBROMA CACAO)

Canopy characteristics (leaf area index, fractional light interception, extinction coefficient) of mature trees of ten clonally propagated cacao cultivars were measured over a period of 14 months at an experiment site in Bahia, Brazil. Differences in leaf area index between clones became more pronou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental agriculture 2002-07, Vol.38 (3), p.359-367
Main Authors: Daymond, A. J., Hadley, P., Machado, R. C. R., Ng, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions
Biological and medical sciences
breeding
Canopies
canopy
clones
Cloning
Cocoa
Cultivars
Data collection
Experiments
Extinction
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Genetics and breeding of economic plants
Interception
leaf area index
Leaves
Light
Radiation
Sensors
Theobroma cacao
Trees
Variance analysis
Varietal selection. Specialized plant breeding, plant breeding aims
Yield, quality, earliness, varia
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Summary:Canopy characteristics (leaf area index, fractional light interception, extinction coefficient) of mature trees of ten clonally propagated cacao cultivars were measured over a period of 14 months at an experiment site in Bahia, Brazil. Differences in leaf area index between clones became more pronounced over time. When an approximately constant leaf area index was reached (after about nine months), the leaf area index varied between clones from 2.8 to 4.5. Clonal differences in the relationship between leaf area index and fractional light interception implied differences in canopy architecture, as reflected by the range of extinction coefficients (mean values ranged from 0.63 for the clone TSH-565 to 0.82 for CC-10). The results demonstrate the potential for breeding more photosynthetically efficient cacao canopies.
ISSN:0014-4797
1469-4441
DOI:10.1017/S0014479702003083