Maize landrace diversity persists in rural areas in transition to urban areas

Abstract

One of the factors that threatens maize landrace diversity is the growing urbanization, because it results in the reduction of agricultural areas and contributes to the loss of varieties. Even though the urbanization process is taking place in several rural areas, to date there are few studies aimed at assessing the level of morphological diversity present among the maize landraces still cultivated in those spaces and to determine their degree of association with the races there reported. This was the objective of the present study. Therefore, during the year 2021, in the municipality of Coronango, Puebla, we recollected 54 maize landraces, which, together with three racial controls, six experimental varieties and a commercial control, were evaluated under rainfed conditions in three auxiliary councils within the municipality, using an 8x8 simple lattice design. We evaluated 37 variables (phenological, morphological and derived indexes), which were subjected to a combined analysis of variance, cluster and principal components analyses. We found highly significant differences among materials for the 37 variables. The multivariate analyses revealed the existence of three landrace groups, which differed basically on grain color, earliness and leaf, tassel, ear and grain traits. Those groups were poorly related with the Conico and Elotes conicos races; but one of the white grain groups was related with the Chalqueño race. We conclude that, despite the pressures faced by this area in transition between the rural ant the urban conditions, an important level of morphological diversity still persists among the maize landraces there cultivated.