April 2025 News & AMA | #PodSaveChocolate Ep 111

Episode 111 OverviewEpisode 11 of #PodSaveChocolate features chocolate news that’s fit to eat and AMA/Ask me Anything (about chocolate and cocoa) for April 2…

Episode 111 Overview Episode 11 of #PodSaveChocolate features chocolate news that’s fit to eat and AMA/Ask me Anything (about chocolate and cocoa) for April 2025. Visit the post on TheChocolateLife for more information and resource links: https://lnkd.in/guxgfbQx 🍫🍫🍫🍫 🍫🍫🍫🍫 🍫🍫🍫🍫 Living #LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife one story at a time. Join LIVE to comment and ask questions during the episode. Please like the video, subscribe to the YT PodSaveChocolate channel, comment, and share! #cacao #cocoa #cacau #chocolate #specialtychocolate #craftchocolate Bluesky.app, Twitter/X, Instagram/Threads, Tiktok: @discoverchoc 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://lnkd.in/dChQXTjA

Other event by TheChocolateLife on Friday, April 11 2025

DC Chocolate Festival

A calendar of Chocolate Festivals, Conferences, Exhibitions, Trade Fairs, and Food (& other) Holidays. This is a work in progress. Is there something missing or wrong? Please scroll down for instructions and let us know so it can be added or corrected. [ Updated January 20, 2025. ]

Numerous collecting expeditions of Theobroma cacao L. germplasm have been undertaken in Latin-America. However, most of this germplasm has not contributed to cacao improvement because its relationship to cultivated selections was poorly understood. Germplasm labeling errors have impeded breeding and confounded the interpretation of diversity analyses. To improve the understanding of the origin, classification, and population differentiation within the species, 1241 accessions covering a large geographic sampling were genotyped with 106 microsatellite markers. After discarding mislabeled samples, 10 genetic clusters, as opposed to the two genetic groups traditionally recognized within T. cacao, were found by applying Bayesian statistics. This leads us to propose a new classification of the cacao germplasm that will enhance its management. The results also provide new insights into the diversification of Amazon species in general, with the pattern of differentiation of the populations studied supporting the palaeoarches hypothesis of species diversification. The origin of the traditional cacao cultivars is also enlightened in this study.

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is an important cash crop in tropical growing regions of the world and particularly for small cacao farmers. Over the past two decades, ‘CCN 51’ has become one of the most planted cultivars in Ecuador, mainly as a result of its high productivity and disease resistance. Intermixing of Nacional fine flavor Ecuadorian beans with beans of ‘CCN 51’ has become common practice, reducing overall bean quality and decreasing value. The primary goals of this study were to determine the genetic identity, structure, and allelic richness of ‘CCN 51’, its maternal origin and to compare ‘CCN 51’s’ agronomic characteristics against a composite group of Nacional cultivars. To investigate the complex genetic background of this cultivar, 70 simple sequence repeat loci were used. The high heterozygosity observed (56 of 70 loci) for ‘CCN 51’ is not characteristic of traditional Nacional cultivars. Comparison of agronomic characteristics between ‘CCN 51’ and several Nacional cultivars indicates significant differences in cacao dry bean weight, yield potential, production efficiency, percent healthy pods, and witches’ broom [Moniliophthora perniciosa (Stahel) Aime & Phillips-Mora] disease incidence. Additionally, physical, chemical, and organoleptic characteristics suggest that ‘CCN 51’ is different from those of Nacional lineage. Based on population structure analysis, the predominant ancestries for ‘CCN 51’ are Iquitos (45.4%), Criollo (22.2%), and Amelonado (21.5%) genetic groups. A lesser proportion of its genome was accounted for by genetic groups Contamana (3.9%), Purús (2.5%), Marañon (2.1%), and Nacional (1.1%) admixtures. Results of phylogenetic analyses using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean yielding high bootstrap values strongly support the relatedness of ‘CCN 51’ with Iquitos, Criollo, and Amelonado genetic groups. Moreover, seven mitochondrial simple sequence repeat loci revealed that ‘CCN 51’ maternally inherited the ‘IMC 67’ cytotype. ‘CCN 51’ constitutes a valuable cacao genetic resource that is currently used not only in its country of origin, but also in many other national breeding and selection programs worldwide.

Hosted by Clay Gordon, the creator and moderator of TheChocolateLife.com, #PodSaveChocolate covers a wide variety of topics in the worlds of cocoa and chocolate. The video versions of this podcast are hosted and archived on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Click on the PodSaveChocolate link in the top nav on TheChocolateLife for the links to the post accompanying each episode.