Main symptoms include: leaf chlorosis (interveinal), root necrosis, red vein banding in young leaves, small mottled pods, and stem/root swelling followed by die-back.

Neither nutrition nor temperature changes have a perceivable effect on symptoms, but increased light intensity inhibits the development of root/stem swellings in infected plants.

[6] Cacao swollen-shoot virus has a double stranded circular DNA genome that is 7.4 kb in size and bacilliform in structure.

[9] Light intensity has the effect of reducing swelling in shoots while plants in the shade show more severe symptoms.

In controlled trials, 340 feet was the maximum distance a mealy bug could be spread from an infected plant to a cacao seedling by wind dispersal.

The Swollen Shoot Virus is not native to cocoa but jumped into the cocoa from trees that grew in the tropical forests of W. Africa (e.g. Ceiba pentandra, Adansonia digitata, Cola chlamydantha, Cola gigantea and Sterculia tragacantha).

[14] This serves to remove the source of inoculum to prevent spread of the virus; however the method has not succeeded to significantly control the disease.

[17] It is also recommended that the cordon be planted with a CSSV-resistant crop to provide a physical barrier to the mealy bug vectors.

This is viewed as a waste of land, however, by farmers in Ghana who are set on growing only the valuable cacao plant, so they are resistant to the idea.

This issue is being addressed by suggesting alternative money-making crops such as citrus and oil palm, which have promise as barriers that prevent the spread of CSSV.

[19] In both cases, education through extension practices has been suggested as a means of convincing farmers to participate in these control measures, as well as more rigid implementation of these recommendations.

However, once the canopy starts to grow together with interlocking branches, mealy bug movement is facilitated and the virus can quickly spread to the whole plantation.

[1] With yield losses of 25% and 50% the first and second years, respectively,[3] and eventual death of the plant, this has been a persistent issue affecting the livelihoods of cocoa farmers.

Between 1936 and that time the cocoa industry of Ghana almost completely broke down, causing much rural discontent and political uproar.