The Cocoa plant
The scientific name of cocoa is "Theobroma Cocoa", assigned in 1753 by Carl Von Linnč, a Swedish scientist of the 17th century. The cocoa tree requires a warm, damp climate (between 25°C and 30°C), and thus it fluorishes only in a tropical environment, between 20° North and 20° South of the Equator: inn Central America, in the Northern part of South-America, in Central and Western Africa and in some area of the Asiatic South-East.
As the cocoa plant is very delicate, small plants are generally grown in nurseries or green-houses first, and then transplanted in plantations or reproduced by cuttings. If left to grow spontaneusly, the cocoa plant reaches up to 10-18 meters in height but, in order to simplify harvesting in the plantations, plants are kept at a height of 5-6 meters.
For protection against the sun and sudden changes in temperature, and because they require very damp soil, these plants are placed in the proximity of other, bigger trees, such as the banana, coconut, baobab etc. and this system in known as "shading" or windbreaking.
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