Entrelaçado, a rare maize race conserved in Southwestern Amazonia

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays spp. mays L.) is the major domesticated cereal of the Americas and is of great relevance for global food security. For a long time, Amazonia represented an empty space in the racial distribution maps of this species, due to the lack of collections and the idea that locally developed races became extinct during European colonization. However, a native race had been described in Brazilian Amazonia, the Entrelacado race, and a new study placed Amazonia on the map again, with a proposal for a center of diversification in Southwestern Amazonia. We prospected maize in the Brazilian states of Acre and Rondonia (Southwestern Brazilian Amazonia) and found floury landraces belonging to the Entrelacado race, rare in existing collections and often considered extinct in the field. We collected indigenous and local names, general and specific uses for Entrelacado, and characterized these accessions to compare them with other Brazilian floury maize races, based on data from the literature. Floury maize from the Southwest formed a coherent group in the cluster analysis, which grouped with Entrelacado from the literature, confirming its identification and demonstrating that this race is conserved in Southwestern Amazonia.