Strategy to establish a CFC project collection

One of the activities in the CFC project is the identification and distribution to cocoa breeders of a subset of accessions from the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad (ICG,T). The objective is to enrich local working collections with clones selected for a high level of genetic diversity and for specific agronomic traits. A strategy is proposed to identify such a subset that will be called the 'CFC/ICCO/IPGRI Project Collection' or in short CFC Project Collection. This involves the following four main steps: - Selection within different 'populations' in the ICG,T of clones that show favourable agronomic traits. Each population will be represented by a number of selected clones proportional to the genetic diversity it contains and its expected value in breeding. Priority will be given to resistance to black pod and witches' broom diseases. About 500 clones (to be known as Sub-sample A) will be selected initially; - After confirmation and further evaluation, multi-trait selection will be applied to identify Sub-sample B (250 clones). The genetic diversity of Sub-sample B will be assessed using RAPD markers; - A consensus list of 100 genotypes (to be known as the CFC Project Collection) will be established based on agronomic value and genetic diversity; - The level of heterozygosity of these clones will be evaluated, and they will be identified using a co-dominant molecular marker (RFLP and/or micro-satellites). The clones will be distributed to user countries. The choice of clones to be included in the CFC Project Collection will depend on existing information and new information obtained during the course of the project, from activities carried out by the Cocoa Research Unit (CRU), on characterization and germplasm evaluation, as well as from other cocoa research institutes, whenever this becomes available. This paper describes the considerations and details of the strategy proposed to establish the CFC Project Collection. (Résumé d'auteur)