Effects Of The Use Of Cytokinins And Gibberellic Acid In The Cultivation Of Cocoa (Theobroma Cacao L.) Cultivar CCN-51 In Ecuador

Abstract

The production of cocoa Theobroma cacao L. is essential  for some developing countries, especially in South America, since it is an essential raw material in international trade operations, and in this context, improving production characteristics becomes relevant. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the use of phytohormones in the pre-flowering stage of cocoa and their influence on production variables, including flowering and fertilization percentage, fruit length, kernel weight, number of fruits per plant and yield. A completely randomized design with five treatments and four replications was carried out, an analysis of variance and a comparison of means with Tukey's test ∞=0.05. The results showed that the treatment with cytokinin's at a dose of 2.0cc/L (T3) obtained a CV of 3.54% and a p-value of 0.0016 in the applied model, reaching the highest yield 1287,5 kg/Ha being statistically equal to treatments T1, T2 and T4, but different from the control T5, on the other hand, the treatment that presented the best percentage of flowering and fertilization was the treatment with cytokinin's at a dose of 2.5cc/L (T1). It is concluded that the use of cytokinin's favors the percentage of flowering and fertilization in the cocoa crop, improving the yield compared to the control.