Background: Cocoa is an industrial crop, playing a major role in the micro and macro-economy of many Africa countries, with recommendable contribution to the livelihood of the populations. The Cameroonian government recognizes the importance of the cocoa sector for its economy and announced ambitious goals to expand cocoa production. Unfortunately, black pod rot, caused by Phytophthora megakarya, has long been the nightmare of cocoa farmers. Aim: The study aimed at comparing the effect of three approaches of fungicide control of cocoa black-pod-rot disease on mountainous humid cocoa farm in Kékem, Cameroon. Methodology: The experimental design consisted of three phases (approaches) of treatment applied to three different fungicides distributed at random to three farm blocks. In this Restricted Randomized Block Design, phase I consisted of treating every two weeks, phase II every 10 days and phase III every two weeks with two targeted treatments in between two treatments. Phytosanitary removal of rotten pods was systematically applied to all the blocks. The normality assumption was violated for all the variables (Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test: P<0.05), thus, the non-parametric Kruskall Wallis test was used to compare groups for significant difference. Results: In overall, there was a drop in cocoa black-pod-rot across the phases with phase III being the most efficient, with an average percentage loss due to black pod rot of 17.5%. This was followed by phase II with a percentage loss of 24.5%, while phase I was the least efficient in controlling black pod rot with a percentage loss of 31.4%, and this difference was statistically significant (KWT: P=0.001). Comparing within treatment, the trend was the same, with Phase III approach the most efficient and Phase I the least. Conclusion: Phase III approach proved to be more efficient and moreover consuming the lesser amount of fungicide as compared to the second phase. Though the consumption of fungicide was the least in the first phase, the losses were 13.9% higher as compared to Phase III, which is a conservative-proportionate increase of 79.4%. This gain in fungicide was too far from economically compensating the losses, thus making Phase III approach the most cost-effective, as it even consumed lesser fungicide as compared to Phase II. Recommendations: It was recommended that spacing fungicide application in the control of cocoas black-rot-pod, coupled with targeted treatments for critically affected spots, reduce not only the intensity of rotten pods, but equally consumed lesser fungicide with major advantages for the environment while been economically cost-effective. Phytosanitory removal of rotten pods was generally applied in prospect of integrated disease control, which is an added value for sustainable farming system.
Fungicide, control, cocoa, black-pod-rot, humid mountainous farm, Kékem, Cameroon
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