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Field Studies of Guatemalan Maize

1947; Missouri Botanical Garden; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2394775

2162-4372

Edgar Anderson,

Rice Cultivation and Yield Improvement

The variation pattern of Zea Mays is surprisingly like that of man It is made up of a number of poorly defined geographical races and sub-races, some of which characterize wide areas while others are of restricted distribution.The members of any one population vary greatly one from another, and ordinarily it is only by statistical methods that one can demonstrate regional differences.In maize, as in man, there are centers of variation in which strikingly different forms are found in a comparatively small area.For the maize plant one of these centers is western Guatemala where, according to Mangelsdorf and Cameron (1942) "in an area less than half the size of the state of Iowa are found probably more distinct types of corn than occur in the entire United States."This great variability of Guatemalan maize has attracted numerous collectors and is one of the reasons why Iowa State College recently established a Tropical Research Center in Antigua, Guatemala.However, judgments with regard to the comparative variability of Latin American maize need to be made with greater caution than they have been in the past.Most of the corn in the United States corn belt is uniform in color.Much Latin American corn has not been so rigidly selected for that feature and to our eyes looks more conspicuously variable than it really is.As every geneticist knows, a few segregating color genes can give the impression of great variability to a population which is relatively uniform morphologically.As we shall demonstrate below, Guatemalan fields are, morphologically, among the most uniform which have yet been studied, though there is indeed a great variation between different varieties.түледі as.