For the past 15 years, the global cacao industry has confronted a trio of devastating fungal diseases that cost growers an estimated $700 million in losses annually. Now scientists at the Agricultural Research Service Subtropical Horticultural Research Station in Miami, Fla., are developing productive cacao (Theobroma cacao) trees resistant to these diseases: witches’ broom, frosty pod and black pod.
The research is based upon traditional varietal selection and breeding enhanced by the use of DNA-derived markers associated with disease resistance.
WSU horticultural genomicist Dorrie Main will be assisting the project by developing detailed genetic maps and assembling the sequence fragments into the complete genome sequence.
The research is funded in part by candymaker Mars, Inc. IBM is also lending a virtual hand through its Blue Gene supercomputer, which will be used to analyze the cacao genome.
For more information, click on the following link to Science Daily.
|
|
