PRODUCTION OF COCOA HYBRID SEEDS IN THE C OTE-DIVOIRE - VARIOUS HAND POLLINATION TRIALS

Hand-pollination trials were carried out in five biclonal cocoa seed g ardens in the Cote-d'Ivoire. The efficiency of hand pollination withou t isolation of the floral buds, calculated by the ratio number of pods harvested: number of pollinations carried out, is 29%, which correspo nds to one pod for 3.4 pollinations. The percentage of seeds from self -fertilization, very high after natural pollination (32 to 93%), is se verely reduced after hand pollination with (O to 1.6%) or without (2 t o 6.7%) isolation of the floral buds. The mean number of normal beans per pod is higher after hand pollination, with or without isolation of the floral buds (39 to 53), than after natural pollination (31 to 38) . The inverse tendency is observed for the percentage of flat beans : 2.4% to 7.5% after natural pollination and 0.7% to 2.6% after hand pol lination. An economic feasibility study, presented in the appendix, en abled an estimate of the cost of a pod after hand pollination with and without isolation of the floral buds: fifteen times and five times th e cost of natural pollination respectively.