Growth Analysis of Cacao Seedlings
Abstract
HE programme of physiological investigations on cacao (Theobroma cacao) planned at the West African Cacao Research Institute includes a detailed study of the effects of external factors, particularly light, on seedling growth. With this in view, it was necessary to study the variability of the various changes by which growth can be expressed, to develop methods by which the precision of estimates of these changes could be improved, and to determine the degree of replication which would be required. Hence a series of preliminary observations was conducted under ordinary field conditions, without differential treatments, which would give information as to the normal growth characteristics of cacao and at the same time enable the questions mentioned to be answered. The present study is an account of these preliminary observations, which extended over a period of 7 months from planting; it appears to be the first such investigation performed on a tree crop. An exhaustive study, on similar lines, of the first 6 weeks of development of the cacao seedling has already been published (Goodall, 1949), and hence the present paper will concern itself mainly with the period between 6 weeks (when the first 'flush' of leaves has almost completed