Abstract
The cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao L.) occurs in the wild in tropical regions of South and Central America, particularly in the upper Amazon basin which is considered its primary centre of diversity. By the 16th century it was already well established as a crop in several areas within these regions and cocoa beans were used both as currency and as the basis of a drink, the ‘chocolatl’ of the Aztecs. Subsequently cocoa cultivation spread to other parts of South America and the Caribbean, to West Africa and to Malaysia and Indonesia. Virtually all the present world production of cocoa originates from these regions (Wood & Lass, 1985).
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Wheeler, B.E.J., Suárez, C. (1993). The Pathosystem. In: Rudgard, S.A., Maddison, A.C., Andebrhan, T. (eds) Disease Management in Cocoa. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2126-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2126-2_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4943-6
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