Cocoa Plants Harvest and Post Harvest

Harvest and post harvest
How to harvest:

• To harvest the cocoa using a sharp knife.
• When the location of high cocoa pods, connected with a bamboo knife.
• The way not to injure the stem grapes are grown fruit (fruit bearing)
• Harvesting is done only by cutting the fruit stalk right in the trunk or branches of an overgrown fruit, this order does not prevent flowering in the next period.
• Harvesting is under the supervision of the foreman, the foreman overseeing every 20 people per day.
• A cacao fruit picker can pick as many as 1500 pieces per day.
• Ripe fruit is harvested with a high density system with 6 / 7 means the fruit picked in 7 days 6 days. If the low density of ripe fruit, harvested with a system of 7 / 14.

Post Harvest
Collection.
Fruit that has been harvested is usually collected at a specific place and class are grouped according to ripeness. Skin breakdown implemented using a hard round wood.
Fermentation :

• Is the core processing of cocoa beans, namely the process of formation of candidates for the taste, bitter taste reduction and improved physical appearance of seeds.
• Fermentation container can be either a box or basket beraerasi.
• During the fermentation of grain stacks covered in banana leaves or burlap sacks.
• Pile of seeds in the minimum height is 40 cm box.
• Avoid contact with metal.
• Fermentation produces seeds that are less precise slaty
• Long fermentation 5-7 days for cocoa lindak, and 3-4 days for noble cocoa, with a reversal once after 48 hours.

Signs of adequate or finished fermentation:

• Seed seemed a little dry (moist)
• Brown and smelling vinegar acid
• Mucus easily removable
• When cut in cross-sectional seeds look like rings of brown.

Drying

• After it is dried until its water content 6-7%.
• Drying can be by the sun or dryer or a combination of both.

Packaging and Storage

• Dried cocoa seeds can be put into burlap sacks.
• Each burlap filled with 60 kg of dry cocoa beans, then the sacks containing the dried seeds are stored in the warehouse is clean, dry and berfentilasi good.

Storage in warehouses should be no more than 6 months and every 3 months should be examined to see whether there is mold or pests that attack cocoa bean warehouse.

May be Useful

Cocoa Cultivation Techniques

1. Land preparation and planting distance

• To provide a good growth medium for cocoa seedlings to be planted, at the prospective place of cocoa crop will be planted with a planting hole should be of sufficient size.
• Cocoa planting distance 3 x 3 m or 4 x 2 m, while the commonly used size of the hole is 60 X 60 X 60 cm. Planting hole was made 6 months prior to planting. Can be inserted into the hollow of green manure or manure.
• By making this planting hole, tried to be the stones, and the remnants of the roots are not inserted back into the planting hole.
• Parts of top soil and sub soil lifted up the hole in the opposite direction, the hole left open temporarily.
• When closing the holes may be added organic matter, top soil is placed at the bottom of the hole, the sub soil at the top. 

2. Preparation of planting material and nursery Terminology
Some common sense is often encountered in the cultivation of cocoa:

• Varieties: plant material developed generative breeding (with hybrid seeds).
• Clones: plant material propagated vegetatively (by cuttings, grafting, side grafting)

3. Planting shade (temporary and permanent)
The layout of the shade plants in the field:

• Plants grown in shade while the line with a distance of 75-100 cm from the row of cocoa plants.
• Plant shade still lies at the intersection of the diagonal line that connects the cocoa crop.
• Temporary shade crop planted a year before the cocoa seedlings planted in the garden, as a benchmark that is easy for this condition is a young cocoa only get direct sun exposure for 2 hours (11:00 to 13:00).
• Plants shade remains (lamtoro and gliricidae) were planted 1-2 years before the seedlings are planted in the garden.

4. Maintenance (pruning, fertilizing and controlling pests and diseases)
Pruning is the act of disposal of part of plant organs in the form of branches, twigs and leaves that are aimed at:

• Getting a frame (frame) a good cocoa crop.
• Arranged for the spread of the branches and leaves of the plant canopy can be productive in evenly.
• Dispose of plant parts such unwanted water sprouts, diseased or broken branches.
• Stimulate the plant to form new organs of the young leaves are more potent as a producer of food.
• Pressing the risk of pests and diseases.
• Improving the ability of plants to form fruit.

Fertilization is intended to supplement certain nutrients in the soil is insufficient for the needs of cultivated plants. Fertilization should be done based on the principle of balance because of fertilizers that contain a certain element in excess will interfere with absorption of other nutrients. Maximum results will be obtained if the fertilization is done by: 
Proper dosage      : according to table
Exact type             : based on soil analysis
Appropriate time  : the beginning and end of rainy season
Appropriate way  : through the soil or leaf 

 
                                common dose of fertilizer

May be Useful
 

Cocoa Plant Growing Conditions

Climate
• latitude 100 to 100 L.U L.S
• Higher than 0 s.d place 600 m above sea level
• 1500 s.d Rainfall 2,000 mm / yr
• In dry (rainfall <60 mm / month) for less than 3 months
• Maximum temperature of 300-320 C, a minimum of 180 -210 C
• No high winds continuously, the maximum wind speed of 4 m / sec

Media Plant

The growth of cocoa seedlings obtained on the best land is dominated by smectite clay minerals and a row followed by a soil containing chlorite, kaolinite and halloysite.

Cocoa plants can grow well in soil acidity (pH) 6-7.5, no higher than 8 and no lower than 4;

The chemistry of the soil (especially in the 1-30 cm layer): The level of organic matter> 3.5% or levels of C> 2%, the ratio C / N 10-20.
 

Water soil aeration in order to affect the growth and nutrient uptake. To that end, into the ground water is hinted at at least 3 m. 

 
Factors determining the slope of the land is the depth of ground water. Land terracing on the slope is 8% and 25% respectively with a minimum width of 1 m and 1.5 m, while the land slope is more than 40% should not be planted with cocoa.


May be Useful

Botany and Morphology Cocoa Plants

 

Cocoa Plant Classification
Division           : Spermatophyta

Class               : Dicotyledonae
Nation             : Malvales
Tribe                : Sterculiaceae
Marga             : Theobroma
Type                : Theobroma cacao L 

1. Roots:
Cocoa is a plant with feeder root surface (mostly developing lateral roots near the soil surface).
Thickness of rooting zone in the good soil is 30-50 cm.
At low soil water soil, roots grow long and riding the lateral roots into the soil, whereas at high soil water & clay soil, the roots do not grow up riding so deep and lateral roots grow near the soil surface. 
2. Stems and branches:
The original habitat of the cocoa plant is a tropical forest with a canopy of tall trees, rainfall and humidity is high, so the plants grow tall.
In the garden, plant height was 3 years at 1.8 - 3 meters and at the age of 12 years reached 4.5 - 7 meters.
Cocoa crop is dimorphous (two forms have branches) namely orthotrop branches (branches that grow upward) and plagiotrop (branches that grow sideways).  

3. Leaves:
Leaves on main stem and branches have orthotrop formula leaves 3 / 8 and the formula has cabag plagiotrop ½ leaves.
30 cm long and 7.5 cm wide. 

 

 

Image : Leaves cocoa with three times the germination 

 
Image : Cocoa leaf image  
4. Interest
• Flowers are cauliflorous cocoa means growing flowers and fruit grow attached to the stem or branch.
• Cocoa plant as many as 6000 flowers to bloom, about 5% of the fruit.
• The flowers are small, reddish-white color and odorless.
• Consists of 2 groups based on the nature of interest:
Self-fertile or self-compatible, the cocoa plant that flowers can be fertilized by pollen from flowers of the  plant itself or the self-sterile. Self-sterile or self incompatibel the cocoa plant that only flowers can be fertilized by pollen from flowers of other clones.
 


May Be Useful