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Races of Maize in Colombia

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Races of Maize in Colombia NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES- NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Publication 510 RACES OF MAIZE IN COLOMBIA L. M. Roberts, U. J. Grant, Ricardo Ramirez E., W. H. Hatheway and D. L. Smith in collaboration with Paul C. Mangelsdorf Publication 51 O NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES- NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL Washington, D. C. 1957 COMMITTEE ON PRESERVATION OF INDIGENOUS STRAINS OF MAIZE OF THE AGRICULTURAL BOARD DIVISIONOF BIOLOGYAND AGRICULTURE NATIONALACADEMY OF SCIENCES-NATIONALRESEARCH COUNCIL Ralph E. Cleland, Chairman J. Allen Clark, Executive Secretary Edgar Anderson Merle T. Jenkins William L. Brown Paul C. Mangelsdorf C. O. Erlanson G. H. Stringfield Claud L. Horn Paul Weatherwax Other publications in this series: RACES OF MAIZE IN CUBA William H. Hatheway NAS-NRC Publication 453 I957 Price $1.50 RACES OF MAIZE IN CENTRAL AMERICA E. J. Wellhausen, Alejandro Fuentes O. and Antonio Hernandez Corzo I in collaboration with Paul C. Mangelsdorf NAS-NRC Publication 51 I 1957 Price $1.50 Previously published by the Bussey Institution, Harvard University, in 1952: RACES OF MAIZE IN MEXICO E. J. Wellhausen, L. M. Roberts and E. Hernandez X. in collaboration with Paul C. Mangelsdorf Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 57-60039 Price $1.50 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................... v INTRODUCTION.............................................................................. 1 GEOGRAPHYAND CLIMATEOF COLOMBIA.................................... 3 COLOMBIANINDIAN GROUPS AND THEIR AGRICULTURE.............. 7 THEANTIQUITY OF MAIZEIN COLOMBIA.................................... 9 WHEREMAIZE IS GROWN IN COLOMBIA...................................... 11 FACTORSINVOLVED IN THE EVOLUTIONOF MAIZE IN COLOMBIA 13 Hybridization between Races ............................................ 14 Hybridization with Teosinte-contaminated Maize .......... 15 Possible Hybridization with Tripsacum ............................ 16 COLLECTINGPROCEDURES ............................................................ 18 IDENTIFYINGTHE RACES ...................................... CHARACTERSUSED IN CLASSIFICATION........................................ 20 Vegetative Characters of the Plant .................................... 21 Characters of the Tassel ...................................................... 24 Characters of the Ear .......................................................... 25 Physiological, Genetic and Cytological Characters .......... 29 DESCRIPTIONOF COLOMBIANRACES ............................................ 31 Primitive Races ............... ................................................. 32 Pollo .................................................................................. 33 Pira .................................................................................... 38 Races Probably Introduced ................................................ 40 Pira Naranja ...................................................................... 42 Clavo ................................................................................ 44 Güirua .............................................................................. 48 Maíz Dulce ................................................................ Maíz Harinoso Dentado .................................................. 50 Cariaco .............................................................................. 53 PAGE Andaquí ............................................................................ 57 Imbricado ........................................................................ 59 Sabanero .......................................................................... 62 Colombian Hybrid Races .................................................... 71 Cabuya .............................................................................. 71 Montaña .......................................................................... 75 Capio ................................................................................. 80 Amagaceño ...................................................................... 84 Común .............................................................................. 88 Yucatán ............................................................................ 95 Cacao ................................................................................ 98 Costeño ............................................................................ 103 Negrito .............................................................................. 107 Puya .................................................................................. 109 Puya Grande .................................................................... 114 Chococeño ........................................................................ 116 THEVALUE OF THE MAIZECOLLECTIONS .................................... 120 SUMMARY...................................................................................... 122 LITERATURECITED ........................................................................ 123 APPENDIX ...................................................................................... 127 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to express our grateful appreciation to all who have contributed to the preparation of this monograph. We could not have reached the conclusions here presented, and for which we accept complete responsibility, without having had at our com- mand the collections of maize from Colombia and the neighbor- ing countries of South America, and the thousands of notes and measurements which have been assembled over a period of five years through the labors of many dedicated workers. The following Ingenieros Agrónomos merit special mention for their assistance in collecting and summarizing the data on which this study is based: Ing. Eduardo Chavarriaga M., who participated in the program in its early stages, has generously continued to give us the benefit of his years of experience in working with Colombian maize. Ing. Emilio A. Yepes Y. was primarily responsible for the ear and plant data on the highland collections and for the preliminary classification of the highland races. Ings. Manuel Torregroza C., Bertulfo Peña V. and Efrain Díaz B. assembled the data on the lowland collections at Mede- llín and assisted in their classification. Ings. Roberto Astralaga R. and Daniel Sarria V. took notes on the IowIand collections grown at Palmira. Both Ing. Torregroza and Ing. Sarria wrote theses on the characteristics of lowland races. Ings. Clímaco Cassalett D. and Libardo Escobar R. grew the lowland collec- tions at Montería. Ing. Estela Escudero M. summarized many of the ear and plant data and helped with the diagrams and graphs. Ings. Daniel Varela A. and Rosendo Chamorro M. gave much of their time to taking notes and making the pollinations required in renewing the collections. Many students from the Facultad de Agronomía at Medellín devoted their spare hours to assisting the Ingenieros Agrónomos. Sr. Victor Manuel Patiño R. served as the principal field col- lector from 1950 until 1955, and it was largely due to his diligent efforts that such a thorough job was done of bringing together V vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the collections from Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Bolivia. He was ably aided in this work by Sr. Pablo E. Daza B. who has also been of great assistance in organizing materials for study in the laboratory and in receiving, cataloguing and storing collections. We cannot be too grateful to the agri- cultural workers in this and other countries who gave the collec- tors their enthusiastic and effective help and to the thousands of individual farmers who allowed the .collectors to enter fields and who willingly contributed ears of their maize and eagerly told all they knew about it. The collecting work was greatly expanded and expedited, especially in the neighboring countries in the Andean region, by financial grants from the International Cooperation Administra- tion to the National Academy of Sciences-the National Research Council of the United States of America. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr. Luis Duque Gómez and Ing. Agr. Daniel Mesa B. for their interest and invaluable assistance, especially in connection with the review of the litera- ture on archaeology, ethnology and linguistics related to the problem. We wish especially to thank Mr. John Paxson who made some of the chromosome-knob counts; Mrs. P. C. Mangelsdorf who studied the internal characteristics of the ears; Mrs. U. J. Grant who typed the final manuscript; Sr. Rafael Rodriguez L. who made the photographs, maps and some of the diagrams; Srta. Nubia Osorio C., Srta. Eloisa Rivera E. and Srta. Elvia Quiceno A. who did the typing of first drafts and tables and who attended efficiently and cheerfully to innumerable details connected with this work. Finally, the authors wish to express their deep gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation and especially to its Director for Agri- culture, Dr. J. George Harrar, and to the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture for their constant interest, encouragement and sup- port, without which this study could not have been completed. RACES OF MAIZE IN COLOMBIA L. M. Roberts,1 U. J. Grant, Ricardo Ramirez E., W. H. Hatheway and D. L. Smith in collaboration with Paul C. Mangelsdorf INTRODUCTION Early in 1950 the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture, seeking to improve the basic food plants of the country, established, in cooperation with the Rockefeller Foundation, a program of corn
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