The Monograph deals with the conception, planning, implementation,
results and conclusions of the International Witches' Broom Project
(IWBP), which was set up in 1985 with the aim of producing an economic
management system for witches' broom disease of cocoa. The contributions
of the various sponsors, and the roles played by the participating
organizations and scientists are described in the introductory chapter.
Chapter 2 provides a review of what was, and what was not known from
published literature about the cocoa- witches' broom pathosystem in
1989. The scope of the project and the approaches used are covered in
Chapter 3, while Chapters 4 to 13 report on the field studies themselves
in detail. The recent appearance of witches' broom in the important
cocoa area of Bahia in Brazil is described in Chapter 14, before disease
management recommendations are summarised and future prospects
considered in the closing chapters. The many man-years of field research
in the IWBP in a total of six countries generated much useful
information which was analyzed both in the individual countries and
collectively. Even with a document of this size, certain information and
analyses with less direct relevance to disease management had to be
omitted. It is expected that more detailed treatments of certain aspects
will emerge in scientific papers, and further analyses will be
undertaken.
