Moniliophthora roreri

Given the devastating yield losses caused by frosty pod rot within a few years of disease establishment, growers in countries and regions free of the disease are anxious to maintain disease-free status and vigilantly reconfirm the absence of cream to tan pseudostromata on pods. Cocoa-producing countries particularly at risk of M. roreri introduction have developed measures for early detection and rapid response. The Dominican Republic, as the world’s largest producer of organic cocoa, linked its nation-wide diagnostic network with the incipient Caribbean Pest Diagnostic Network (Reyes Valentín et al., 2010). Brazil combined classical spore trapping with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect the inconspicuous spores of M. roreri and distinguish them from other fungal taxa (Pomella et al., 2005). Sentinel stations near the borders with Colombia and Peru, where the disease is rife – far away from the cocoa-producing regions of Eastern Brazil – are proposed, in the hope that distant rapid response could win enough time to save the Brazilian cocoa industry from an invasion by M. roreri.
Early detection and a rapid response leading to eradication have never been applied successfully against frosty pod rot. After a latent infection phase of approximately seven weeks, there is an extremely narrow window of opportunity for early detection, as prolific sporulation occurs within one week of diagnostic symptom development. Thus, Krauss (2010) recommended training farmers as well as field officers in the recognition of early symptoms of frosty pod rot and offered tools for this purpose.
Where frosty pod is established, quantitative disease assessment involves the counting and removal of all pods that can be positively identified as infected with frosty pod rot. The aforementioned sliced pod assay can give diagnostic clarity.