Parentage analysis and comparison of cocoa families derived from bi-parental crosses and open-pollination for vigor and precocity in recommended cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) clones in Ghana.

Bi-parental hybrids (BPHs) are recommended cocoa planting materials in Ghana and other West African countries. However, the inability to produce enough BPHs to meet farmers' demand makes it almost impossible to avoid open-pollinated families (OPF) in the supply chain. To study the effects of OPF on cocoa production, parentage analysis, vigor, and precocity of seven BPHs generated from a 4 × 2 North Carolina II (NC II) incomplete mating design were compared with eight OPFs. The 15 cocoa progenies together with two checks of Guiana (GU) origin were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with four replications across five contrasting locations for stem diameter increment (SDI) and number of pods per tree (NP). Parentage analyses at 75 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci of leave samples from the 17 progenies revealed that the BPHs were of the appropriate female and male parents, while the OPF had varying number of male parents. The pollination effect (bi-parental vs open-pollinated progenies) was not significantly different for both traits, but the BPH was relatively better and surpassed on average the OPF by 3.5% for SDI and 7.8% for NP. Crosses involving GU 144/ C, T63/967, and T65/238 as females in both the OPF and BPH showed predominantly higher performance than those with PA 7 and T79/501 for both traits. Among the promising female parents, GU 144/C is the only one that is not in the seed gardens and could be added to parental clones currently used in producing cocoa varieties in the seed garden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]