Efectos del corte apical en semillas de cacao (theobroma cacao l.) sembradas con biocarbón para la obtención de portainjertos.

Abstract

A profitable productivity and an adequate development of a cocoa plantation depends a lot on the correct application of cultural tasks complemented by an adequate nutritional management applied to the crop, but what most producers in Ecuador are unaware of is that another point as important as those mentioned above that has a direct bearing on the productivity of the plantation, and slightly on the mortality rate of the crop at the time of planting, is the functional state in which the root of the cocoa plant leaves the nursery for the field. From this approach came this research as an alternative to solve this problem that occurs in most nurseries in the country. The research project was developed at the Santa Inés farm belonging to the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of UTMACH and aims to determine the effect of apical cutting in cocoa seeds (Theobroma cacao L., 2001).) sown in substrates with different doses of Biocarbon to obtain rootstocks, so the specific objectives were To evaluate the effect of apical cutting applied to cotyledons of ICS95 cocoa seeds (in the development of seedlings) on the percentages of germination, emergence and establishment of rootstocks, to evaluate the effect of 3 doses of Biocarbon applied to the substrate by determining the height of the plant, percentage of the root and diameter of the stem, to evaluate the effect of the size of the cover in the root development of the seedlings in which I use the variety of cocoa ICS 95 where a sowing with whole seed was realized, and the other sowing with an apical cut of 1,5cm in the seed in covers two different sizes: F1: 10x6in (26X13cm) and F2: 5x8in (20x12cm), as substrate was used S1: Soil + 5% of Biocarbon; S2: Soil +10% of Biocarbon; S3: Soil + 15% of Biocarbon. The design used was with a factorial structure comprised of 3 factors: Factor A: Cut in the seed; Factor B: Size of the cover and Factor C: Substrate. Twelve treatments were carried out to compare if there is significant variance between them. Among the results obtained from the investigation, we could realize that there was significance between the majority of the treatments, since there was a wide combination between factors, (height of cover, cut of seed and percentage of biocarbon) that generated this difference between the treatments. When interpreting each one of the figures obtained in the statistical yearbook, we could observe that there was a significant difference from T7 onwards in comparison with the treatments T1 to T6, which include seeds with apical cut, this significance was noted in all the variables evaluated between the means of whole seed and seed with apical cut, being the variables of the latter lower than the mean of the variables of the uncut seeds, which happened because when we made the apical cut in the cotyledon, we decreased the nutritional reserve that it had for the adequate development of the seedling.