Symptoms
Symptoms appear first on older leaves. They show pale yellowgreen zones (chloroses) between the leaf veins. With increasing N deficiency the leaves become uniformly chlorotic, get brown patches and eventually drop.
Reasons
Nitrogen deficiency.
N has to be made available during the first years of plantation development in order to establish high yielding cocoa trees. Later the majority of nutrients comes from recycled nutrients from leaves and pruned plant material.
Higher N demand with good light conditions as growth under shade is less intensive.