Grafting clone #1188 by Dr. Philip Scott

Our visit today to the Maron family cocoa plantation nearby Ilhéus, Bahia, could not have been more fascinating. The Maron family descends from Maronite Lebanese who immigrated to Brazil at the turn of the century. Many of them are well known as excellent professionals in areas such as Law, Medicine, Education and of course, Agriculture!

The Cocoa plantation we visited today is in one of the first areas colonized by the Portuguese in Brazil - the Sant'Ana village up the Rio do Engenho river. It boasts of what is believed to be the second church built in Brazil by the Portuguese back in 1536! Maron’s family cocoa plantation has suffered with the ‘Witches Broom’ disease which rampaged the region some 20 years ago. The monilian fungus which causes a general ‘melt down’ of the cocoa tree’s physiological condition was exotic to the region and was introduced under dubious circumstances. The result was devastating and reduced Brazil’s cocoa bean production by 80%. EMBRAPA, the state agricultural research agency - which we will soon visit, has developed a number of disease resistant plants to pull the economy back together.

Clone number 1188 is working this technological miracle at the Maron family farm up the Rio do Engenho river.The clone (#1188) is not only resistant to the monilian fungus, but is also a highly productive plant, producing cocoa pods almost double the size of the wild variety and shows a distinctive purplish color as opposed to the wild yellow. With this clone, it is possible to use an uninfected wild variety of cocoa tree as a start-up for the genetically ‘improved’ cocoa clone.

Maron showed us how this cloning is done in practice. ‘Runner’ shoots from a healthy tree are clean cut at about 1 meter height and 2 parallel vertical slits are made in order to fit in a 15 cm long clone #1188 sapling. Both are then tightly held together with a plastic tape for about 2 weeks before results can be evaluated. The sapling is further protected from the elements with a simple plastic bag covering both areas affected. The operation is very similar to open surgery, where the parts need to be kept as clean as possible and ‘bandaged’ together so as to avoid principally bacterial or fungal contamination of sorts.

As one man can perform about 100 grafts a day, Maron will hopefully soon have a fully restored and productive cocoa plantation.

Meanwhile, he produces complementary cash crops including banana, ornamental flowers such as the bird of paradise and peppers.

Rubber is tapped from trees planted by his forefathers. This tree is well over 60 years old an still producing!


We wish to thank Maron for his excellent explanations on the many agricultural and botanical aspects of his cocoa farm and wish him success in restoring such an important crop to the region. Cocoa agribusiness has always provided many jobs in agriculture and industry. Cargill, who processes approximately 40% of the world's chocolate has a strong processing base in Ilhéus.