Caracterización morfológica del cacao nacional “Theobroma cacao L.” del cantón Naranjal, Ecuador

Abstract

This investigation was carried out in Naranjal in ten randomly selected farms.  These farms produce national or fine-aroma cocoa. Observations and measurements were made to morphologically characterize the Forastero and Trinitario cocoa. Descriptive statistics parameters were applied to a group of morphological variables such as weight, length, and width of the fruit, roughness, thickness and coloration of the pericarp, and number of seeds per fruit, of each of the plants that make up the sample, according to which ten ears were taken and from each ear, five seeds were described taking determinations of variables such as weight, length, width and thickness of the seed, weight of the pulp, and taste. Likewise, ten random flowers were taken from each plant to measure their structures. After the analysis of each of these variables individually, a multiple regression analysis was applied to obtain information on the degree of participation of the variables. Then, the variables of coloration, weight, shape, and roughness of the fruit were obtained to separate the evaluated plants for similar phenotypic characteristics, that were later subjected to an ANOVA to show which of the groups had greater statistical variability. A greater participation of the Foreign type and less of the Trinitarian type was found. Also, it was found that the most important characters for the characterization are found in the fruit.