Survey and monitoring of insect pollinators of cocoa

Abstract

Cocoa is the third important beverage crop grown for its beans which are mainly used in chocolate industry. Cocoa flowers are produced in large numbers but only few of them develop into fruits. Field experiments were carried out to study the insect pollinators of cocoa through survey and monitoring in major cocoa growing districts of Tamil Nadu during 2013–2014. Maximum of 114 pollinators emerged from the decomposed leaf litter collected from thirteen years old cocoa plantations at Sethumadai, Coimbatore district. Positive correlation was observed between age of the trees and number of pollinators emerged. Another field experiment was conducted to monitor the pollinators of cocoa by installing coloured sticky traps during 2013–2014 in the farmers’ holdings at Sethumadai, Coimbatore district. The highest number of pollinators was trapped on the blue sticky traps followed by white sticky traps. Abundance of cocoa pollinators in the field was positively correlated with weather parameters viz soil moisture and rainfall and negatively correlated with soil temperature.