Response of Cocoa to Drought Lengths in the Forest-Savannah Transition Zone, Ghana

Abstract

The study was to determine how 13 years old "Series II", a bi-parental hybrid of Amelonado and Trinitarioscocoa, will respond to different drought lengths in the prevailing climate scenario in the Forest-Savanna Transition Zone of Ghana. It was designed with six treatments of varied drought lengths as: trees with no irrigation (T0), trees with one month (T1), two months (T2), three months (T3), four months (T4)drought lengths and continuously irrigated cocoa (T5), all with four replications in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) under drip irrigation over nine month period. Data was collected on number of pods per plant, number of beans per pod, weight of fresh pod and weight of hundred dried beans. The results showed that the highest mean effect on the yield parameters was recorded by the trees with continuous irrigation (T5) and yield parameters values decreased with increasing drought length. Statistical analysis revealed that there was significant influence of drought lengths on yield parameters (p< 0.05). Drought length in the new climate of the study area had significant effects on the yield parameters of cocoa.