Abstract
The cultivation of cacao represents an income option and a source of employment for thousands of small producers in Central America. In Honduras, due to the demand for fine flavor cacao to produce high-quality chocolate, the number of hectares planted is increasing. In addition, cacao clones belonging to the genetic group named Criollo are in great demand since their white beans lack of bitterness and excellent aroma are used in the manufacturing of premium chocolate. Unfortunately, the low resistance to pests and diseases and less productive potential of Criollo cacao leads to the replacement with vigorous new cultivars belonging to the other genetic groups or admixture of them. In this study, 89 samples showing phenotypic traits of Criollo cacao from four regions of Honduras (Copán, Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, and Olancho) were selected to study their genetic purity using 16 SSR molecular markers. The results showed that some samples belong to the Criollo group while other accessions have genetic characteristics of “Trinitario” or other admixtures cacao types. These results confirm the genetic purity of Criollo cacao in Honduras, reaffirming the theory that Mesoamerica is a cacao domestication center and also serves to generate interest in the conservation of this genetic wealth both in-situ and ex-situ.
Highlights
Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is an economically important crop because it produces the raw material for making chocolate
Cacao was initially thought to be domesticated in Southern Mexico and Central America since vessels used by pre-Columbian cultures in Honduras and Mexico contained trace remains of theobromine, confirming the use of cacao products 1800–1000 years BCE [4,5,6,7,8,9]
The single sequence repeat (SSR) markers used in the current study were able to separate the samples of pure Criollo cacao from the other remaining genetic groups and admixture populations
Summary
Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is an economically important crop because it produces the raw material for making chocolate. It is native to South America, with its center of origin in the upper Amazonian region spanning Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador [1,2,3]. Cacao was initially thought to be domesticated in Southern Mexico and Central America since vessels used by pre-Columbian cultures in Honduras and Mexico contained trace remains of theobromine, confirming the use of cacao products 1800–1000 years BCE [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Recent archaeological finds reveal that the upper Amazon region was a center for the domestication of cacao [10]. Recent studies showed that during this period of domestication there was a high selection for genes related to anthocyanins and theobromine, which caused the cacao Criollo to maintain a high frequency of deleterious mutations [13]
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