A study was undertaken to study the effect of weather parameters on yield cocoa over Vellanikkara, Thrissur, Kerala. The monthly cocoa yield of the Cadbury – KAU Co-operative Research Project farm were collected for 100 trees from 1991-2007. The weather data for the above period was also collected and pooled according to the cocoa yield data. The mean peak harvest was noticed during May (6.2 pods/tree), followed by March (5.2 pods/tree) while less in February (2.7 pods/tree). The coefficient of variation was very high (48.7 – 124.5 %) in monthly pod yield of cocoa while it was less (23.2 %) in the case of annual yield of cocoa. The mean seasonal pod yield was more during the summer (5.0 pods/tree), followed by Northeast monsoon season (4.1 pods/tree). The results indicated that there was an inverse trend between the annual rainfall and cocoa yield. Wherever the annual rainfall was very high, the annual cocoa yield was low. In the case of temperature, the maximum temperature from January to March had a profound negative influence on annual cocoa yield. From the above it can be inferred that high maximum temperature from January to middle of March together with high rainfall during the rainy season appeared to be detrimental for obtaining better yield in cocoa.
Climate variability, cocoa, rainfall, temperature, yield variability
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