Penn State Uses Cloning Technology
To Improve Cocoa Plants
UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre
Co.) Scientists in a Pain State
research program have developed
a process to clone genetically
identical cocoa trees from cocoa
flowers, which could enhance co
coa plant quality on a large scale.
And that, in turn, could increase
cocoa farming profitably and sta
bilize the Supply of cOcoa beans
on the global market.
“Right now, cocoa plants are
grown from seed, and these plants
vary greatly in their yield and dis
ease resistance,” said Mark Guilti
nan, associate professor of plant
molecular biology in the College
of Agricultural Sciences. “In some
cases, up to SO percent of the trees
can be substandard. By selecting
the best trees and producing
identical clones, we potentially
can increase plant productivity on
farms.”
Guiltinan and a team of scient
ists soon will begin a long-term
field test of cloned cocoa plants at
the Union Vale Estate on Saint
Lucia Island in the West Indies
(located off the northern coast of
South America). The estate is
owned by Edmund Opler, chief
executive officer of World’s Fin
est Chocolate Inc.
The Penn State team, funded by
the American Cocoa Research In-
stitute, collected flowers from 14
of the most productive cocoa trees
on the estate. As a control, they
also collected flowers from sever
al of the worst trees. The flowers
were flown back to Penn State
University Park campus, where
individual cells from the buds
were grown into full-sized plants.
Guiltinan says the process, called
“somatic embryogenesis,” repli
cates a more complete plant than
those derived from grafting.
“Plants produced from grafts do
not develop a tap root that can sus
tain the plant in adverse condi
tions,” Guiltinan explained.
“Grafted plants also grow in the
shape of a bush and have to be
pruned during growth to resemble
a natural cocoa tree. In Brazil
alone, there are 660 million cocoa
plants, which means a lot of prun
ing.”
The plants produced from the
flower cells have been grown in
Penn State greenhouses for the
past year. By June, the cloned co
coa plants will be planted in a
Union Vale Estate field together
with plants grown from grafts and
from seed. Over the next three to
five years, researchers will mea
sure growth rates, pod production
and chocolate-making quality.
“When plant breeders find a
superior plant, the idea is to make
more of them,” Guiltinan said. “A
tree grown from a single cell is
genetically identical to the parent
tree from which the flower was
isolated. This means plant breed
ers can choose plants that are best
adapted to a particular geographic
area or are resistant to certain dis-
eases.”
Guiltinan said the cocoa tree
cloning project on Saint Lucia will
take years to implement on a large
scale because the plants take four
to five years to mature enough for
scientists to gauge yield, produc
tion and disease resistance. “Com
breeders can produce three gen
erations of plants in one year,”
Guiltinan said. “Cocoa will take
15 years to reach the same stage of
development.”
If tests prove positive, then co
coa-producing nations can in
crease production of promising
lines of cocoa plants. “Brazil cur
rently has 600 million plants sus
ceptible to disease, and breeders
there have only a few hundred
plants from which to start a breed
ing program,” Guiltinan ex
plained.
Guiltinan said the economic im
plications of Penn State’s research
are significant. Most cocoa is
grown on small farms in five
countries: Brazil, Ghana, Indo
nesia, the Ivory Coast and Malay
sia. If breeding programs can pro
duce plants particularly well
suited for different growing areas,
farmers’ incomes will increase. In
addition, the elimination of boom
or bust crop cycles will help sta
bilize world cocoa production,
which would benefit Pennsyl
vania’s $4 billion chocolate indus
try. Pennsylvania is the country’s
top chocolate-producing state.
Increased cocoa production
also may have an ecological bene
fit, Guillinan says. The cocoa
plants are a sustainable crop for
tropical ecosystems because they
are grown for long periods of
time. The plants also require a
large canopy of shade trees for
growth, which offers superior
habitat for migratory birds and
other wildlife. In addition, cocoa
farms could act as connective
greenways between islands of
rainforest habitat
In addition to the Penn State
cloning process, which has a pro
visional patent Guiltinan’s team
also is starting a genetic engineer
ing research program to breed
plants resistant to disease and
pests.
By injecting a plant with the
DNA of a natural pesticide, horti
culturists can breed plants resist
ant to such pests as the cocoa pod
borer, which is the major pest in
Malaysia, or the myriad, an insect
that infests cocoa crops in the
Ivory Coast. Similar treatments
for such plant diseases as witch’s
broom, pod rot and cocoa swollen
shoot virus could be engineered
into the genetic blueprint for co
coa plants, Guiltinan said.
“Forty percent of the cocoa
crop is lost to disease and pests
every year,” Guiltinan said.
“That’s billions of dollars lost to
the economies of cocoa-producing
countries.”
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