Genetic
Traits for Tomorrow: Uncovering the Diversity of Kenyan
Maize
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| George Owuor
examines samples of the Mundingo maize landrace
from coastal Kenya. |
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Mention maize diversity and people conjure up images of
blue, yellow, and white tortillas made from maize grown
by traditional farmers in Mesoamerica. Indeed, the vast
bulk of landraces among the 22,000 accessions found in
CIMMYT’s maize genebank originate from this region.
Maize diversity is not limited to the cereal’s center
of origin and domestication, however. A farmer’s
maize basket from coastal Kenya looks surprisingly like
a maize basket far to the west—a colorful display
of black, purple, red, yellow, white, and mixed-color
ears, of varying lengths and circumferences. And these
varieties carry traits that breeders and future generations
may find extremely useful.
The Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) has
joined forces with CIMMYT, IPGRI, and IFPRI to capture
and characterize maize diversity for the benefit of current
and future researchers.
“We hope to capture the unique traits of native landraces
and learn about the adaptations used by farmers,”
says Zacharias Muthamia, officer-in-charge of the KARI
genebank. “This project provides a major renewal
of our maize materials, and helps us to systematically
collect and characterize these resources. It’s an
important contribution to sustainable agriculture, both
now and for the future.”As part of the Insect Resistant
Maize in Africa (IRMA) project, extensive farmer surveys
were conducted by Hugo de Groote, CIMMYT socioeconomist
and George Owuor of Kenya’s Egerton University. Dan
Kiambi received a small grant for collection activities,
with the anticipation of further funding for morphological
and genetic characterization work at the KARI genebank.
IPGRI also provided guidance on collection methodologies,
while IFPRI’s Melinda Smale contributed approaches
for analyzing maize biodiversity.
During the surveys, Owuor and de Groote saw practical
examples of how farmers in Kenya’s coastal areas
manage risks posed by pestilence and erratic weather.
Kanjerenjere, a yellow landrace is chosen because of stable
yields even when rains are variable. But the yields are
poor, and harvested cobs are susceptible to storage pests.
Mdzihana, a dark purple variety provides good yields,
and has better resistance to field and storage pests.
But it is vulnerable to erratic weather conditions. Since
a failed harvest can be catastrophic, poor farmers cushion
the risks by planting both landraces, along with five
or six other varieties having different agronomic, physiological,
and consumption characteristics.
“This is one of the first efforts at characterizing
maize diversity in Africa,” says Dan Kiambi, an IPGRI
researcher. “Though it is small step we consider
it important because of the surprising diversity we have
discovered.”
The KARI-CGIAR partnership is key to revitalizing a this
important collection of plant genetic resources.
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