V-236 P, cultivar of maize Pepitilla for low-mountain regions

Abstract

Native maize occupy 70% of the cultivated maize in Mexico, because of its great adaptation to different ecological niches; a relevant case corresponds to the Pepitilla race, one of the most representative landraces of Guerrero, widely recognized by its excellent quality for making tortillas by the mass-boiled corn-tortilla traditional method. Its area of adaptation is the semi-warm region, restricted to conditions of low slope of the mountains of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla and Morelos; however, it does have undesirable agronomic traits that cause lodging and low grain yield. In order to improve it, the program of INIFAP’s Experimental Field Iguala, started in 2000 a collection of landraces for preserving and improving them. After nine cycles of convergent-divergent-mass selection, applied to an integrated collection with ten selected native maize of Pepitilla race population, the variety V-236 P was obtained, which has better agronomic traits than the original, such population as plant height and lower cob, higher resistance to lodging, lower percentage of unproductive plants attributed to larger synchrony between their blooms, more uniform color that gives better quality grain tortilla, but the most relevant of this new variety V-236 P is that it has maintained the tortilla quality, purity of the breed, and has increased grain yield compared to the original population.