Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: SIDEVALDO SANTANA DE JESUS

Cocoa farming, Genetic improvement, Amazon

The cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao L.) is native to the Amazon, in the basins of the Amazonas and Orinoco rivers. The disease Witch’s Broom (Moniliophthora perniciosa) is a limiting condition in cocoa cultivation and techniques that include technological modernization have been adopted to address this problem. This research aims to evaluate and select hybrid cocoa mother plants for self-compatibility, resistance to witches’ broom, yield, and seed quality, under the conditions of the Trans-Amazonian/Xingu region, in the municipality of Medicilândia - Pará, where this study is being conducted. The material collection occurs in areas of producers who grow cocoa of CEPLAC (Comissão Executiva do Plano da Lavoura Cacaueira) origin. The research is quantitative, although it uses a qualitative analysis a priori. Cocoa plants under evaluation were pre-selected by the farmers themselves based on empirical observations (qualitative), where they have shown superior productive performance to neighboring plants. Variables evaluated are degree of sexual compatibility (self-compatible), number of fruits, average number of seeds/fruits, dry seed weight, number of vegetative witches' broom, number of floral cushion witches’ broom, number of fruits with witches' broom. Evaluations began in 2023 and will continue until 2025. Exploratory analyses of the different variables were employed through data visualization techniques and basic descriptive statistics with maximum and minimum values. In addition, the correlation between the variables was tested using a heat map, moreover, a hierarchical clustering analysis was performed for the samples collected using Euclidean distance and the ward.D2 linkage method. Preliminary results indicate the formation of hierarchical groups independent of the location where the matrices were collected. Variables such as the Average Dry Almond Weight and the Total Dry Almond Weight of Fruits showed a high correlation. Plants that met the different criteria in the plant genetic improvement literature were recorded in the present study.