{"id":366,"date":"2015-03-06T07:14:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T12:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intranet.chemservice.com\/news\/2015\/03\/chocolate-in-danger-due-to-demand-pests\/"},"modified":"2015-03-06T07:14:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T12:14:46","slug":"chocolate-in-danger-due-to-demand-pests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intranet.chemservice.com\/news\/chocolate-in-danger-due-to-demand-pests\/","title":{"rendered":"Chocolate in danger due to demand, pests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost everybody loves chocolate, but that may be a problem. As this candy become increasingly popular around the world, in growing economies such as India and China, a supply shortage may be around the corner<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Chocolate relies on cocoa or cacao for its trademark flavor. But unlike candy made from sugar cane or corn syrup, cacao can't be grown rapidly enough to keep up with increasing demand. According to NPR's Planet Money, the plant only grows in a specific tropical setting, it takes up to 10 years to mature and nearly 80 percent of the yield is lost to fungi or diseases. <\/p>\n

Finding a sweet solution<\/strong>
\nScientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mars, Inc., which makes Snickers, M&M's and Twix, are working on developing a super breed of the cocoa plant to resist these common diseases and fungi to help boost crop yield. Not only would this be able to help meet demand, but it could keep many farmers in business, which Juan Carlos Motomayo, the lead scientist at Mars, told Planet Money was the priority. <\/p>\n

Motomayor described the way that cacao is grown today as being "prehistoric." There haven't been the advances in technology and pesticide sciences as there have been with corn, wheat or other large scale agriculture. <\/p>\n

But scientists are working to create a form of cacao that is tough enough to survive pest diseases and possibly even produce chocolate more quickly. Despite thinking of corn as a rough model for how to grow chocolate more widely, Motomayor told Planet money that he doesn't expect the cacao crop diversity to disappear as the super breed is invented. <\/p>\n

Fungi and diseases<\/strong>
\nIt will be years before a superbreed of chocolate is invented, so in the mean time the best defense is to use pesticides against these diseases and fungi. The most common cacao pests are frosty pod, black pod, vascular-streak dieback and witches broom.<\/p>\n

The International Cocoa Organization pointed to the damage that these pests can do<\/a> and which pesticides are most effective against them. <\/p>\n

Black pod –<\/strong> Also known as phytophthora pod rot, black pod can decrease a crop yield by a quarter and even kills trees about 10 percent of the time. It's an aggressive pathogen that's common in Africa and South American, which rots and shrivels the pods and seeds of cacao. The ICCO recommended copper-based fungicides mixed with metalaxyl to take down this pest. <\/p>\n

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Witches Broom –<\/strong> This disease is caused by the Moniliophthora perniciosafungus and is common through Central and South America as well as the Caribbean. It can seriously affect production, stopping the tree from ever even developing fruit. There is no go-to fungicide to stop the development of Witches Broom, the ICCO explained. Instead, areas turn to different combinations of chemicals. Removing infected parts and using disease resistant plants are the best defenses, but those aren't always effective. <\/p>\n

Frosty pod rot –<\/strong> This common cacao condition is caused by Moniliophthora roreri, which is similar to a fungus. It strikes against cocoa pods only while they're growing and is wide spread in Latin America. The ICCO recommended using Flutolanil as a systematic pesticide, explaining copper-based and organic defensive pesticides are also successful. <\/p>\n

Vascular-streak dieback<\/strong> – This Southeast Asian and South Pacific cocoa disease is fungus-caused and often leads to the death of a tree. Malaysia has been especially hard hit by this disease, the ICCO explained, because it can hurt an entire plantation. This disease develops during the region's wet season, making chemical protection difficult. Instead, the ICCO suggested propiconazole be used on the stems of seedlings during development. <\/p>\n

There are also insects that can affect cocoa production, including the cocoa pod borer and mirids. <\/p>\n