chocolate

January 16, 2010, Saturday. Around 3 pm, my sister gave me chocolate. While I am eating, I read a magazine about Fungi Infect Cocoa Plants; Scientist Find Cure. all of us knew that chocolate came from a cocoa plants. I found out that some diseases are threatening to rip through cocoa farms by infecting the very plants that grow the precious beans. One such disease is the witches broom, a deadly white fungus that deforms the trees. It nearly wiped out the entire Brazilian chocolate industry in the early 90's. These days the South American country imports more chocolates that it exports.
Another fatal fungus is the phytophthora, which brings about the most lethal damaging of all diseases the black pot rot. That is why scientist fro region where cocoa is harvested (tropical countries in west Africa, Asia and Latin America), teamed up with their counterparts in the united state to rescue the "seeds of love".
Panama-based scientist Eduard Allen Herre of the Smithsonian Tropical research Institute found that certain fungi serve as natural protection and may be used in place of potentially harmful and costly chemical fungicides. "When we have been finding," said Herre "is that cocoa and tress produce the chocolate that we all love are naturally shot through with fungi. The natural fungi, michroflora, the communities of tiny little fungi, that inhabit this plants and actually live inside the tisues contribute to the defense of this things.