Effect of flooding stress on cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.)

Ricardo Borjas.Ventura E-mail address: rborjas@lamolina.edu.pe Despite the fact that cocoa is very important for small farmers, information about flooding stress is scarce and dispersed being a serious problem. Flood affects cocoa trees in different levels. For example, this kind of stress disrupt the physiology in term of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance; likewise, it provokes damages in the photosystem II reason for which plants of cocoa under flood display high value of Fv/Fm. On the other hand, the overabundance of water reduces the capacity plant have to take nutrients (macro and micro nutrients) from soil. The Reduction of growth and the yield are other symptoms that cocoa trees may be under anoxic conditions. It was interesting to find that cocoa has biochemical strategy to overcome lack of oxygen such as increasing the glycolysis. This specie also has morphological strategy such as forming lenticels. It is very important to choose a flooding stress tolerant cultivar to limit the negative effects of this abiotic stress.