Evaluación de Trichoderma spp como Control Biológico en una Plantación a Pequeña Escala de Cacao

Abstract

Disease control in several crops is mainly made by using chemical methods, which are expensive and hard to get for small scale producers. The biologic control is an alternative that can be helpfulin terms of expenses and environmental sustainability, as elements from the same crop are used, such as in the case of the cocoa´s shell, which is usually discarded. Objective. The objective of this study was to evaluate the healthy fraction of cobs and its performance after receiving two treatments: a biologic one and another chemically synthetized. Materials and methods. The study was performed in Santo Domingo, Antioquia, Colombia, in a small cocoa crop in which 17 trees in three terains were chosen. A biologic control comprised of a lixiviate with the Trichoderma spp. fungus was sprinkled on the tree (n=6), a chemically syinthetized treament that induced resistance (K3 PO3 ) injected in the tree´s log (n=5) and a control with no application (n=6). After the application, the sick and healthy cobs were counted and the humid weight of the seeds was registered during 2 months in each treatment. Results and conclusions. No significant difference was found in the fractions of the healthy cobs and the performance. Nevertheless, the biologic control had an improvement in comparison to the control, indicating that it can be a potentially alternative at a lower cost for small crops.