Centre for Cocoa Studies, M&M MARS, BRASIL: In collaboration with the MARS company we have established a large number of somatic embryo plants in the field in Bahia, Brazil. Additionally, Dr. Smilija Lambert of Mars Inc. in collaboration with researchers from Penn State (Lambert et al., 2000) completed work performed at the Almirante Centre for Cocoa Studies. She has developed a system for downstream propagation of somatic embryo plants referred to as mini-cuttings. For the experiments, Dr. Lambert team used small tissue cultured plantlets, acclimated to greenhouse conditions, as sources of apical cuttings which were then rooted and grown in the greenhouse for three to four months after which they were ready for transfer to the field. Very high success rates were obtained. This is another system that provides a rapid way to produce large numbers of orthotropic plantlets at a lower cost than tissue culture alone.