Tackling mislabelling in cocoa germplasm collections

Abstract

The level of mislabelling of cocoa clones in germplasm collections is fairly high. Although not a new problem, the availability of genetic fingerprinting technologies has allowed projects to be developed that use microsatellite markers to compare clones. However, it is important that when clones with the same name are found to have different profiles, one is determined to be the true type (with reference to the most original material). Off-types should be kept for their potential agronomic value, but with a unique new name. We have proposed a format for renaming that highlights the mislabelling event and which includes references to the source germplasm collection and the name originally given to the clone.