Article Category: Crops (Publications)
Making Natural Pesticides Recipes
How to Grow Seasoning Herbs
How to Grow Pumpkin
How to Grow Tomatoes
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) can be grown throughout the year. You can start harvesting tomato fruits 8 - 9 weeks after transplanting. One tomato plant can yield 4 - 6 kg…
Papaya Production – A Producer’s Manual
The papaya or pawpaw (Carica papaya) is one of the most popular fruits for consumers and producers alike. It can be very profitable and rewarding for a farmer even on…
How to Grow Sweet Peppers
Black Pod Disease of Cocoa
Black Pod disease is caused by a fungus, Phytophthora palmivora. It infects pods, flower cushions, young vegetative shoots, stems and roots of cocoa trees. Black pod disease occurs mainly during…
Rehabilitation of Old Cocoa Fields
Rehabilitation is the transformation of old, abandoned or semi-abandoned estates into productive, money earning enterprises. Unproductive cocoa trees are replaced with high-yielding, disease tolerant varieties. Yields would greatly increase if…
Shade Management in Cocoa Production
A seventy per cent (70%) shade is absolutely necessary for newly established young cocoa plants. This should be gradually reduced to twenty five per cent (25%) shade for cocoa trees…
Harvesting, Fermentation and Drying of Cocoa
Harvesting involves the removal of fully mature and ripe cocoa pods from the trees, and opening them to extract the beans (figure 2). Harvest pods with sharp cocoa knives or…
Production of Cocoa
Cocoa or Theobroma cacao can be grown either from seeds (seedling cocoa), cuttings (clonal cocoa) or from grafted/budded plants. Seedlings have a tap root system and are recommended for hillsides…
Witches Broom Disease of Cocoa
Witches’ Broom is a disease of cocoa caused by the fungus Moniliophthora perniciosa on cocoa. The infection causes numerous broom-like shoots to sprout, thus the term “Witches’ Broom”.
