Banzai Biostimulant: Plant Defense Stimulator (PDS) of Cocoa Trees in the Fight against Phytophthora sp.?

Cocoa cultivation represents the most important socio-economic asset of the state of Côte d'Ivoire. However, it is subject to many constraints such as land scarcity, harmful action of pests and diseases. To overcome this state of affairs, a new range of biological inputs has intervened on the agricultural market; these are biostimulants and / or plant defense stimulator. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness of the biostimulant Banzaï against brown rot giving it the status of defense stimulator. The experimental device, repeated three times, is composed of a Fischer block composed of six randomized plots noted T01, T02, T1, T2, T3 and T4 each composed of twenty cocoa trees tests highlighting three or four applications of the biostimulant with or without fertilizer input. The results obtained showed that the plots treated with the banzaï biostimulant controlled the rot of the cherries better than the control plots (p<0.05). However, for pod rot, no significant difference (p>0.05) was recorded, although at the descriptive level the control plots had the highest rot rates. As for the treatments, the T4 treatment (four applications of Banzaï with fertilizer input) is the one that best controlled the brown rot of cherries and pods. However, to consider the biostimulant Banzaï as a defense stimulator in its own right a more in-depth study on the durability of the protective action against Phytophthora sp is indispensable.