Nurturing with Nature: The Efficacy of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Microbe for Cocoa Sector Environmental Management in Ghana

Despite the proven effectiveness of fertility-promoting microbes such as Arbuscular Mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to minimize the adverse effects of environmental deterioration and climate change, there is limited understanding on its efficacy to improve cocoa resilience in Ghana. Cocoa mortality (70%) caused by climate change induced drought within two years of transplanting to the field is a major constrain to farmers’ productivity. We assessed the effect of morphologically identified AMF and K on the biochemical characteristics of cocoa and its field survival from 2019 to 2022. The AMF inoculum was prepared using the trap-culture technique. Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines predicted leaf chlorophyll and Phosphorus uptake as the key factor influencing cocoa survival and resilience under field condition. The results have implications for cocoa breeding, productivity, sustainability of cocoa agricultural systems as well as K nutrition and AMF as bio-stimulant under drought conditions.